


Osculum Obscenum

by bimmyshrug



Category: IT (1990), IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Aggression, Alternate Universe - High School, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Bisexual Richie Tozier, Blood, Bullying, Childhood Trauma, Dark Richie, Dark Richie Tozier, Dubious Consent, Feminization, Gay Eddie Kaspbrak, Groping, Homophobic Pennywise (IT), Humiliation, Hurt/Comfort, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Manhandling, Mention of Necrophilia, Mentioned Pennywise (IT), Non-Consensual Groping, Obsessive Behavior, Possessive Behavior, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Psychological Trauma, Richie Tozier Being an Asshole, Rough Kissing, Sexual Aggression, Smoking, Spit Kink, Trauma, Underage Smoking, Unhealthy Relationships
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-23
Updated: 2020-05-08
Packaged: 2021-02-28 02:07:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 41,015
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22866076
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bimmyshrug/pseuds/bimmyshrug
Summary: "Something in Richie broke after that summer. Well, something in all of them broke. But it was different with Richie. Something in him had /died,/ something bright behind his eyes that used to sparkle when he laughed. Then there was just… nothing. Just cold, metallic blue, thinly veiling whatever Eddie feared he might find if he kept looking deeper."-In essence, nearly fucking dying because your friend dragged you into some vendetta he has against a demon clown can leave a boy feeling jaded. Or, you know, cause him to have a psychological breakdown. It's a toss up.
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier, Patricia Blum Uris/Stanley Uris
Comments: 134
Kudos: 331





	1. The Frail

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She shines in a world full of ugliness  
> She matters when everything is meaningless  
> Fragile, she doesn't see her beauty  
> She tries to get away  
> Sometimes it's just that nothing seems worth saving  
> I can't watch her slip away
> 
> I won't let you fall apart

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [ Come see me on Tumblr! ](https://bimmyshrug.tumblr.com/)
> 
> ['Osculum Obscenum' playlist](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5lEdq6H9GE0hvXRLOKNMy1?si=8sBkPtTQSDeFOYURZmonWw)
> 
> PLEASE HEED THIS WARNING: Richie is mean in this fic, and that includes being mean to Eddie. If that's something you don't care to see, I wouldn't suggest reading it. I just want it to be very clear that Richie is an asshole in this fic and he's an asshole to Eddie.
> 
> CW/TW MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS: underage kissing, mention of blood, coarse language... I think that's it
> 
> Let me know what you guys think and if this is worth continuing!! I probably will either way because I really love writing an assholey, morally ambiguous Richie (if that weren't obvious from ETBH) and I seriously love the idea of exploring the many ways that this super complex trauma might have affected these kids and their psychoses.

The first time Richie kissed him, it was way, way before they had to deal with all the stupid fucking clown bullshit.

It was back when it was just Eddie, Bill, and Richie. The Three Musketeers. They were all so young then that Eddie didn’t really understand anything about what it meant for a boy to kiss another boy, but he knew that he really liked it when Richie would hold his hand when they walked to get ice creams together, and that his heart would start beating really fast when Richie kissed him on the forehead and pinched his cheeks and called him cute. Even if he said he hated it.

Bill was sick that day, that’s why he couldn’t hang out with them at the park. Eddie wanted to go visit him and bring him some soup, but Bill’s mom said he was too contagious, and they couldn’t risk getting sick, too. Of course that prompted Eddie’s mom to forbid him from going anyway, and as much as Eddie wanted to argue about it, he knew he wouldn’t win.

She was so determined to get him not to visit Bill that she even _encouraged_ him to hang out with Richie, which was weird, since she was always talking about how dirty Richie was. Eddie didn’t think Richie was dirty. Sometimes they got really sweaty when they were riding their bikes around for a long time during the summer, or when they would go exploring in the woods and get covered in mud. Richie especially liked mud puddles. But he always took a bath after, and Eddie never thought Richie smelled bad or anything. He usually smelled like shampoo and whatever laundry soap Mrs. Maggie used.

Richie said they should go to the park, but Eddie wasn’t really sure why, since it was supposed to rain that day. Eddie didn’t like thunderstorms, and he really hoped it would just be rain.

They went anyway, mostly because Richie offered to ride Eddie double on his bike, and Eddie never passed up the opportunity. It was getting harder, since Richie was growing so fast and his bike was getting too small for him, but they still managed to cram Eddie into the front of his bike so Richie could pedal them around town much faster than Eddie ever dared to himself.

When they got to the park, Richie nearly threw his bike into the grass after they both climbed off of it, and Eddie barely had time to get his bearings before Richie was taking off full tilt toward the swing set. Eddie followed after him a moment later, though he couldn’t catch up, which was unfair. Eddie always ran faster than Richie, always, since forever. Now Richie was getting taller already, and Eddie was determined to keep running faster than him anyway. In a few short weeks, they would meet Stan at that same park for the first time, and all four of them would race to the swing set, and Eddie’s determination would grow even stronger.

“Are you gonna leave your bike lying there?” Eddie asked once he caught up, and Richie just offered a shrug before climbing onto one of the swings. Eddie climbed onto the one next to it, and they both immediately started pumping their legs.

“Why not?”

“’Cos it’s gonna rain, and it could get all messed up.”

“I leave it outside all the time. Besides, dad says I have to give it to Piper when he gets me a new one, and she’s being a butthole.”

“Ew!

“Well, I called her an asshole, but my mom yelled at me.”

“That’s a bad word, Richie!”

“Come on, Eds. You’ve heard worse words.”

“Yeah, from you!”

They competed to see who could get the highest the fastest, and Eddie called out triumphantly when he reached the top of the swing set first, pushing his full weight into each swing. Richie followed suit a few moments later, and even managed to kind of sync up their swinging, so that Richie would reach the top a second after Eddie did, and they could smile at each other for a brief moment at the top before plunging back down again.

“I wanna go on the slides,” Richie eventually announced, and Eddie didn’t really want to leave the swings, but Richie was already dragging his feet in the mulch to bring himself to a halt.

“Richie, we shouldn’t go on the big slide, my mommy said it’s dangerous!” Eddie whined as soon as Richie started dragging him toward the tallest slide in the park. Richie glanced back and him and rolled his eyes, continuing to stomp toward the ladder.

“Your mom says everything is dangerous.”

“Mrs. Maggie said so too!”

“So?”

“So we can’t! My mom will be so mad!”

Richie paused, gently gripping Eddie around the shoulders.

“So don’t tell her, and she won’t be mad.”

“But- But-“

“Eds, your mom can’t be mad at you for stuff she doesn’t know you did. Just keep it a secret.”

Eddie still hesitated before allowing Richie to drop his hand into Eddie’s, encouraging him up the ladder first.

Once they got to the top, Eddie was nearly wheezing. It looked so much higher up from the top.

“Okay, go,” Richie said, pushing Eddie toward the precipice.

“Why do I have to go first? You go first!”

“Okay,” Richie shrugged, pulling Eddie out of the way to plop his butt down onto the cold metal. “You’re such a baby.”

“I’m not a baby!” Eddie whined, stamping his foot. “Butthole,” he muttered under his breath as an afterthought, and Richie laughed before reaching up to him.

“Just come sit and we can go at the same time.”

Eddie paused, biting the inside of his cheek. “But what if you fall on me and break my leg or something?”

“Jeez, Eds, I’m not that heavy,” Richie grumbled, and Eddie huffed before conceding, stuffing himself into the space between Richie’s legs.

“Kay, ready?”

“No, I’m scared,” Eddie begged softly, but Richie was already inching them forward. “Richie, stop, I’m scared!”

“There’s nothing to be afraid of, Eds,” Richie said directly next to his ear, hugging Eddie tighter around the middle before using his legs to send them down the slide.

Eddie clamped his eyes shut, and his immediate reaction was to scream, but he found himself unable to. Like the scream got caught in his chest right before it could get to his throat, and it sat there stuck while Eddie could do nothing but sit frozen in terror.

It felt like it took an hour to get to the bottom of the slide, and once they did, Eddie tumbled into the pit at the bottom before Richie landed on top of him, knocking the wind out of his lungs.

“Oh shit, sorry Eds,” he said before standing, reaching a hand down to help Eddie back onto his feet.

“That’s… that’s… a bad word,” Eddie scolded through gasps, trying desperately to get his breathing under control.

“Alright, Muttley, take a deep breath,” Richie rolled his eyes, patting Eddie on the back firmly, as if trying to kick-start his breathing.

It didn’t work, though, and Richie began to look alarmed when Eddie’s face grew redder and redder, watching as he struggled to gasp in air where he stood hunched over, bracing himself on his knees.

“Eds?”

Eddie tried to reach into his fanny pack for his inhaler, but his hands were shaking too badly, and he nearly fell over again when Richie grabbed him by the strap of it to pull him closer, fumbling around in its pocket himself. He managed to knock Eddie’s bandages and hand sanitizer into the mulch in his haste, but ultimately succeeded in finding his inhaler, shaking it quickly twice before pressing it to Eddie’s lips.

Eddie gratefully sucked the bitter, medicinal mist into his lungs, and the effect was nearly immediate. He felt his chest start to loosen right away, and after Richie delivered the second puff, he could breathe again, letting out a few shaky breaths as Richie stood there, watching him with wide eyes.

“You okay, Eddie?” Richie asked softly, and Eddie nodded, still trying to get his bearings.

“Y-Yeah, I’m good. Thanks, Richie,” he finally replied in a croaking, fragile voice. Richie just stared at him for a moment longer before bending over to pick up the items he’d dropped in his search for Eddie’s inhaler, shoving them unceremoniously back into the pocket of Eddie’s fanny pack.

“Don’t mention it, Spaghetti Man.”

“I didn’t… I didn’t like that,” Eddie said softly, and Richie huffed, crossing his arms over his chest.

“I thought it was fun.”

“You didn’t get all your air knocked out of you!”

“So let’s go again, and this time I’ll go first.”

“Richie, I don’t wanna do it again!” Eddie whined, stomping his foot on the ground. Richie just rolled his eyes before grabbing Eddie by the hand, already ushering him back over to the ladder to the slide.

“Richie, no!”

“Don’t be such a wuss.”

Eddie wanted to argue further, but Richie was already pushing him up the ladder, and Eddie was going to trip over his own feet if he didn’t move them. So he did. Upward, toward the slide, while Richie pushed on his bottom and made him move even faster.

And he really, really didn’t want to, but he let Richie drag him down onto the slide platform again, this time pulling Eddie down behind himself. So Eddie did the only thing he could do, and wrapped his limbs around Richie from behind, burying his face in Richie’s shirt while he waited for them to descend.

“Ready?” Richie asked again, and Eddie wasn’t really sure why he even bothered asking, because he didn’t respond when Eddie shook his head no against his back.

The second time was less scary than the first, but Eddie still kept his eyes clamped shut the whole time. He still didn’t scream, though, but not because he couldn’t this time. Mostly just because he didn’t see the point.

When they reached the bottom, Richie stopped them by planting his feet firmly on the ground, and they didn’t go flying into the woodchips like they had the first time. Eddie was incredibly grateful for that.

“See, Eds? Nothing to be scared of.”

“I was still scared.”

Richie sighed, turning to put his hands on Eddie’s shoulders again. “Then that just means you’re brave. Doing stuff that scares you even though you’re scared makes you brave.”

That managed to wipe the pout off of Eddie’s face, and he allowed Richie to pull him by the hand over to the monkey bars, where Eddie sat on the ground and watched Richie climb to the top, flipping himself upside-down on the highest row.

“Be careful, Richie. You could fall and hit your head!”

Richie responded by going limp, allowing his arms to dangle toward the ground. “I’m already dead anyway, Eds,” he said, crossing his eyes and sticking his tongue out in a caricature of death.

“Not funny, Richie.”

“I’m the hanged man!”

“People get hanged from their necks, dummy!”

“No, the hanged man,” Richie repeated, gesturing with his arms, like that was supposed to help Eddie understand.

“What are you talking about?”

“Like on those cards they have at the thrift store,” Richie explained further, putting his hands behind his back before attempting to bend one of his legs in front of the other. The motion made him nearly lose his grip and he stopped trying, reaching up to adjust himself before dangling his arms toward the ground once more.

Richie’s poor imitation aside, Eddie understood what he meant.

“Mommy says that’s witchcraft,” Eddie said gravely, which he always did, every time they’d go into the secondhand store and Richie would pick them up in his hands, pointing at the grotesque images of people tied up and stabbed with swords and hunched over under the weight of a load they couldn’t carry, which made Eddie feel really, really uncomfortable. Richie loved it though. He’d flip through them with excited eyes, enthusiastically showing Eddie the images on each one while Eddie squirmed. _Mommy says that’s witchcraft, Rich. You shouldn’t touch those._

Richie never listened, though. Every time they’d go into the secondhand store, he’d beeline to the dusty old shelf that they seemed to perpetually sit on, seeming amazed that they were still there, like they were a desirable item. Eddie wasn’t surprised that they were still there. He didn’t know who could possibly want them. Other than Richie.

“Your mom says everything is witchcraft,” Richie accused, pushing his glasses more firmly onto his face before crossing his arms over his chest.

“Nuh-uh!”

“Yeah-huh, she said you couldn’t watch _Gremlins_ with me ‘cos it was ‘demonic,’” Richie mocked, and Eddie puffed his chest out in a huff.

“She just wants to protect me!”

“From what? Fun?”

“From bad stuff!”

“Sometimes bad stuff is the most fun stuff there is.”

Eddie didn’t have a comeback and sat there with his arms crossed, trying to think of something to say. But he couldn’t, so he just wanted to say something mean. Because Richie was being mean.

“You’re an asshole,” he eventually grumbled, though he felt himself cringe at the use of the curse word. His mom would not be happy if she heard him talking that way. She’d have a cow. But Richie deserved it.

Although it didn’t have the desired effect, because Richie started cackling, laughing so hard that he lost his balance and went crashing to the ground. He managed to brace his fall with his arms, but his glasses still went flying into the woodchips. Despite how grumpy Eddie was with Richie, he didn’t want his glasses to break, so he immediately crawled forward to snatch them away from Richie’s flailing limbs.

“Extra! Extra! Eddie ‘Goodie Two-Shoes’ Kaspbrak uses a cuss word! Breaking News!” Richie yelled, and Eddie punched him in the shoulder, which just made him laugh harder.

“Shut up, jerk!”

Richie just kept cackling, beating on the ground with his fist, like Eddie cursing was the funniest thing he’d ever heard. Maybe it was.

Eddie occupied himself with cleaning off Richie’s glasses, which were covered in dirt from the ground and fingerprint marks (like they always were). He pulled a small cloth out of his fanny pack that he kept there for just this purpose, gently polishing the lenses on Richie’s glasses one by one.

By the time he had them sufficiently cleaned, Richie had calmed down to a light giggling laughter, and Eddie shuffled forward to angrily shove the frames back onto his face.

“Here, buttwad. They were all gross,” he grumbled, and Richie reached up to adjust them, blinking at Eddie from behind the glass.

And Eddie didn’t really know a whole lot about what made someone beautiful or ugly, but he knew that whenever he was this close to Richie and got to look at his eyes, he thought they looked really, really nice. He liked how blue they were, and how they sparkled when he laughed, even if he was laughing at Eddie.

If Richie had a snarky comeback or some other mean thing to say, he didn’t get to say it, because a big crack of thunder sounded above them. Eddie yelped and rushed to cover his ears, and Richie looked up at the sky, just as it started to rain down on them.

“C’mon!” Richie yelled, standing up and grabbing Eddie by the wrist, dragging him back toward the big slide.

“Richie, I _told you_ it was supposed to rain!” Eddie complained, flinching as another crack of thunder sounded overhead.

Richie didn’t respond and kept trudging toward the big slide, and for a terrifying moment, Eddie really believed that Richie was going to push him back up the ladder and make him go down the slide in the storm. His heart would probably give out.

“Richie!”

Richie still didn’t respond, and Eddie was about to wrench his hand out of Richie’s grip and make a break for cover when Richie tugged him underneath the big slide, shielding them from the rain as it began to pour.

Richie pulled them both down into the dry woodchips, tugging Eddie into his side. Eddie went willingly, clinging himself to Richie, trying to bury his head underneath his arm just as another clap of thunder came.

“Richie, I’m scared; I wanna go home.”

“Do you want me to ride us home in the rain, Eds?”

“No!”

“Then we gotta wait until it stops.”

Eddie wanted to cry, but he didn’t want Richie to make fun of him. Everybody always did. “Crybaby Kaspbrak,” that’s what Henry and all his mean friends called him after they’d give him wedgies, and smash his lunch bag, and steal his inhaler. Because Eddie always cried, even though he really did try not to.

Eddie was shaking so bad that it almost felt like he was shivering, which Richie must have thought too, because he started rubbing up and down Eddie’s arms like he was trying to warm him up. Eddie didn’t have time to appreciate the gesture before another clack came from overhead, made only more terrifying by the deafening roar of the rain slamming into the slide overhead.

“Eds, you’re gonna be okay, it’s just thunder.”

But thunder was scary. And with thunder usually came lightning, which was scarier.

Eddie couldn’t stop himself from crying any longer, and his shoulders started to heave with his soft sobbing that was muffled against the fabric of Richie’s t shirt.

Richie pulled Eddie away from his side to look at him, and Eddie went reluctantly, trying in vain to stay glued to Richie’s body. Eventually he found himself eye-to-eye with Richie anyway, because Richie had grabbed him under his chin to make him look up.

“’Member what I said earlier, Eds? That doing stuff even though you’re scared makes you brave?”

“I don’t feel brave,” Eddie sniffled pathetically, still trying to pull away from Richie’s gaze.

“Well you are brave, Eds. Trust me.”

“How do you know?”

“’Cos I do.”

“’Cos how?”

“’Cos you always do stuff that scares you. ‘Member how scared you were when Bill first rode you double on his bike? Now you do it all the time.”

Well, that was true. He was so scared the first time Bill sat him up in the front of his bike, wobbling around in the street because he wasn’t used to the extra weight. He was terrified.

“And ‘cos you used to sleep with all your lights on, but now you just have a nightlight.”

And yeah, that was true, too. Eddie used to be so petrified of the dark that he’d sleep with his bedside lamp on all night; he had gotten used to the orange glow behind his eyelids. He couldn’t sleep without it, before.

But another clap of thunder came, as if to say _You’re not brave, Eddie. You’re a little crybaby._ And he was, because he started crying once more. But he didn’t tuck himself into Richie’s side again.

He couldn’t, not really. Because Richie was looking at him weird.

Well, not weird. Richie looked at him like that sometimes, mostly when he thought Eddie couldn’t see it. Eddie couldn’t really figure out what the look meant, but his face got all serious, much too serious for a kid, Eddie always thought.

“Eds?”

“What?”

“Can I show you something?”

“S-Sure,” Eddie agreed, sniffling through his tears.

And then Richie leaned forward and pressed his mouth to Eddie’s, holding it there for a second before pulling away. And Eddie had no idea why he did it. Truthfully, he never would.

But he didn’t cry again, not for the whole time they sat under the slide and waited for the rain to stop. He didn’t cry when Richie tugged him into the front of his soaking wet bike and rode him home. He didn’t cry that night, either, when he was lying in bed, trying to go to sleep. He didn’t cry when he touched his fingers to his lips by the light of his nightlight, wondering _why why why._

* * *

The second time Richie kissed him, it was after Bill punched him in the face.

Eddie was tired. Tired and hurt, and so sick of being in the hospital already. Sick of being around his mother, too, which was why he sent her away; sent her to go find his doctor, complaining that he needed more medicine for the pain.

He didn’t. Truthfully, he could barely feel his arm. He barely felt aware of it. If he didn’t know any better, he might be convinced that his arm didn’t exist underneath the stiff white plaster at all.

But sending his mother away meant being alone. And Eddie hated being alone. Especially now that the clown was a whole thing. He hated being alone so much that he’d taken to climbing into Richie’s window at night, just so he wouldn’t have to be alone in his own bed.

Richie never seemed to mind, though. He seemed surprised the first couple of times that Eddie showed up, tossing pieces of gravel from the Tozier’s driveway up at his window. But after that, he seemed to expect it. He even started leaving his window unlocked so Eddie didn’t have to throw gravel anymore, and he could just climb inside and crawl into Richie’s bed with him.

He’d tuck himself right up against Richie’s side, and Richie would turn into it, wrapping his arms around Eddie so tight that it almost hurt. Even when he was asleep, he would. And sometimes Eddie would cry, and Richie would pet through his hair, and he’d stay quiet and let Eddie cry.

But there wouldn’t be any more of that, not with a broken arm. He couldn’t climb the tree outside of Richie’s window with a broken arm.

He was considering going to find his mother just to have her company when he heard the distinct sound of sneakers slapping against linoleum, and his heart leapt into his throat.

It had to be one of his friends, right? It had to.

He figured it would be Bill, but he wasn’t surprised to find that it was Richie. What he was surprised by was the blood smeared all over his mouth and staining his teeth.

“Rich, what the fuck? Why are you bleeding?”

“Bill punched me,” Richie stated, as though it needed no further explanation. Which it certainly fucking did.

“ _What?_ Why?”

“Because he doesn’t like hearing that he’s a selfish fucking prick who almost got you killed to ‘save’ his fucking brother who’s already dead,” Richie bit harshly, and Eddie was frozen in shock at the look of malice in his blue eyes.

“R-Richie… we don’t- we don’t know that Georgie is-”

“Georgie is fucking dead, Eddie. Stop living in La-La Land with Bill, where Georgie has been magically living in the sewer this whole fucking time, surviving off of shit and rain water. That’s not fucking reality.”

And yeah, Richie had a point. He did.

“Richie-”

“Is your arm okay? I mean, obviously not, but I mean- is it going to be?” Richie asked desperately, running up to the side of Eddie’s hospital bed, grabbing at his shoulder. Roughly. Too rough.

“Y-Yeah, the doctor said I can get my cast off by the end of the summer. Said you actually did a pretty good job setting the bone too, so thanks, I guess.”

“Good, that’s good,” Richie said quietly, as if he were talking to himself. Which he might have been, because he certainly wasn’t looking at Eddie’s eyes. He had his eyes glued to Eddie’s cast, and Eddie could see his pupils dilating, and he could see him tensing his muscles.

“Fucking Bill. Stupid fucking prick.”

“Richie, he didn’t mean to-”

“I don’t care what he meant to do. You almost _died_ Eddie. Do you get that?” Richie asked harshly, snapping his cold blue eyes up to Eddie’s.

Cold. He didn’t remember ever thinking Richie’s eyes looked cold before.

“Of course I fucking do. But I made the choice to go into the house.”

“I don’t fucking care. We never would have been there in the first place if it weren’t for Bill.”

“Bill was just trying to-”

“Why the fuck are you defending him so much, Eddie?” Richie snapped, still looking directly into his eyes. And that’s what it took for Eddie to shrink away from it.

“I was just… just saying, I made my own decision.”

“Because you were pressured to.”

Eddie sighed, resting his head back against the scratchy hospital pillows. He closed his eyes against the beginnings of a headache, and tried to figure out what the right thing to say was. “Richie-”

He was cut off by a loud bang, causing him to whip his head toward the sound so fast that it hurt his neck.

Richie had put a fucking hole in the wall. With his fist, presumably, based on the way that he was bleeding from his knuckles. Eddie gaped at him.

“Richie, what the fuck?!”

“I didn’t get to punch him back.”

“So you punched the fucking wall? What the fuck?!”

Richie didn’t respond, though, because he was too busy climbing on top of Eddie in his hospital bed, eventually landing with his legs on either side of Eddie’s lap.

“Richie, what are you doing?” Eddie asked urgently, but he wasn’t sure Richie even heard him, based on the way he just kept baring his teeth and looking at him so darkly and pressing into his shoulders with both hands, hard enough to hurt.

Eddie was almost afraid that Richie would bite him. Or something.

But he kissed him instead. It was a harsh kiss, definitely, and Eddie could feel Richie’s teeth mashing against his own, even through their lips. It hurt, sort of, but Eddie was too distracted by the taste of Richie’s blood in his mouth to be fazed by it.

When Richie pulled away, Eddie couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t move. He just sat there, staring at Richie, staring into those cold blue eyes that Eddie felt chilling him from the inside out.

“Richie you can’t- you have to go; my mom, she’ll- she’ll be back any minute, and-”

He cut himself off as Richie climbed out of his lap, standing beside his hospital bed for a moment, just looking at him.

“I’m not gonna let anyone else hurt you ever again.”

Eddie didn’t know what to say, so he just have a wide-eyed nod, because he still couldn’t figure out what the fuck was going on.

Richie gave him one last indecipherable look before storming out, and Eddie had no time to decompress from what just happened before his mother came shuffling back into the room with his doctor in tow.

“He is in _pain,_ you need to do something about this! Right this minute!”

“Ma’am, we don’t want to give him anything too strong if he doesn’t need it, he’s so young-”

“He _does_ need it! Can’t you see he’s _suffering?”_

Eddie blocked out most of the rest of their conversation, but he figured his mom won, because a nurse came in a few minutes later with two white pills in a little Dixie cup. Eddie swallowed them down without hesitation, hoping to fucking God above that they’d knock him out. He just wanted to fucking sleep.

He was vaguely aware of the nurse explaining that Eddie could go home whenever he wanted, and his mother urging that _No, he should be kept for overnight observation! What if a fragment of his bone broke off and lodged into his bloodstream?!_

He wasn’t really listening, though. Not until the nurse asked what happened to the wall, with clear alarm in her voice.

“Is that- Is that blood?” she asked frantically, which was the wrong thing to say, because Sonia started screeching.

“ _Blood?_ You put my son in a _bloody room_ with holes in the walls? This is _unacceptable!_ You move him into a clean room immediately! _Immediately!”_

“Ma’am, I assure you, that hole wasn’t there when-”

“Are you accusing my son of putting it there?! His arm is broken!”

“No ma’am, but-”

“Do you treat AIDs patients in this facility?”

“Well, ma’am-”

“We’re leaving! We’re leaving _now_ , go get my son a wheelchair right this minute!”

“Ma, I can walk,” Eddie decided to pipe up, but Sonia waved his words away, not even sparing him a glance.

“Go get him a wheelchair, now. So that he doesn’t fall in the parking lot and bludgeon himself, since this hospital _clearly_ has no standards for patient care and safety!”

There wasn’t a point in arguing. There never was.

Eddie sat himself in the wheelchair once it arrived, despite his mother insisting on his needing help. “You’re weak, Eddie-bear. The medicines are making you all dizzy, you’ll hurt yourself.”

He didn’t hurt himself.

He allowed himself to be wheeled out of the hospital by the nurse with his mother in tow, practically running after them with quick little steps.

He insisted on climbing into the car himself, too, much to his mother’s dismay. But he definitely wasn’t gonna let some nurse lift him up like a baby and put him in the seat, like he couldn’t care for himself.

Once he was all buckled in and ready to leave, the nurse tapped on his window, which he rolled down with his good hand.

“Yeah?”

“Sorry to bother you, I was just… wondering if you saw what happened. To the wall,” she asked awkwardly, and Eddie heard his mother already huffing through her nose.

“No idea,” he replied automatically, offering her a gentle smile before rolling his window back up.

Luckily the medication kicked in right as they got home, and Eddie had the perfect excuse to go up to his room and take a nap. And while napping _seemed_ like a good plan, sleeping right after confronting a demon alien clown probably wasn’t the brightest idea, and he found himself awakening from a nightmare. Not really a nightmare, actually. Just a replay of what had happened, when Eddie was absolutely sure he was going to die earlier. Every nightmare he can think of would pale in comparison to that reality.

A good amount of time must have passed, because it was dark in his room. So dark, in fact, that all he could really make out were shadows. And that made it all the more terrifying when he saw a shadow climbing in through his window, and he felt his heart leap into his throat.

He lunged for his desk lamp before remembering that his arm was broken, and he only succeeding in smacking it onto the ground with his cast.

“Eddie, it’s just me,” the shadow said, and it sounded so much like Richie.

“Get away from me,” Eddie meant to scream, but it came out as a whisper, and he couldn’t stop shaking. Shaking so bad that his whole bedframe shook with him.

He started crying when the shadow climbed into his bed, gently caressing the side of his face before lying itself down next to him.

“Eds, chill out. It’s just me.”

Eddie still scrambled away to pick the lamp up off of his floor, desperately clicking on the light.

It was just Richie. Without blood in his teeth, this time.

“How the fuck did you get in here?” Eddie asked accusatorily, pointing his lamp at Richie like a knife.

“The window, obviously,” Richie replied coolly, wearing an unreadable expression. He didn’t look as fiercely angry as he did earlier, but his eyes still looked wrong. Like something behind them had dimmed.

“I don’t keep my window unlocked.”

“I know, I popped it open.”

“How- How did you do that?”

“Magic,” Richie joked, but it didn’t sound like a joke.

Still, it was a normal enough response that Eddie relaxed, placing his lamp back onto his nightstand.

Normal enough. That seemed like the best he could possibly hope for anymore, after that day. After that whole fucking summer.

“Why did you come?”

“To see you. Make sure you’re okay.”

“I’m… I’m fine.”

“Good. Should probably get some more sleep, you look exhausted,” Richie commented, reaching over to grab Eddie’s good wrist in his hand, tugging him gently back down onto the bed.

“I am,” Eddie admitted, allowing himself to be dragged onto his mattress and back against his pillows.

Richie tucked Eddie’s head under his chin, carefully draping his plastered arm across his own abdomen, so as not to jostle it in his sleep.

“So get some sleep, Eds.”

“You’re gonna stay here?”

“I figured you didn’t want to be alone.”

He didn’t.

“I never want to be alone.”

He went limp against Richie’s chest, allowing himself to relax into the sensation of Richie’s fingers gently moving through his hair, and dragging down his back, and rubbing over his arms.

And he wasn’t sure when he fell asleep, but when he woke up, Richie was gone. The sun was peeking through Eddie’s windows already, and he rubbed the sleep out of his eyes with his good hand before glancing at his bedside table.

His lamp was still on.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SO GUYS, after the official tally, more of you wanted me to post this than not, and here I am to deliver. Please keep in mind this is a side project; Eager to be Held is my priority until it's finished, so I have no idea when this fic will be updated in between ETBH updates. It helps me not to get burnt out to work on other projects in between writing for ETBH and since it's a fucking beast, it makes it feel a lot less intimidating to write my fuckin 30k word chapters if I have other things to focus on in between. 
> 
> Thanks everyone for reading :)


	2. The Fragile

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We'll find the perfect place to go where we can run and hide  
> I'll build a wall and we can keep them on the other side  
> But they keep waiting  
> And picking  
> And picking  
> And picking

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [ Come see me on Tumblr! ](https://bimmyshrug.tumblr.com/)
> 
> ['Osculum Obscenum' playlist](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5lEdq6H9GE0hvXRLOKNMy1?si=8sBkPtTQSDeFOYURZmonWw)
> 
> Seriously guys this is your last warning, Richie is NOT NICE TO EDDIE in this chapter please don't get mad at me if you don't want to read that type of content
> 
> CW/TW MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS: Underage kissing, intimate touching (not anything under the clothes or involving sex organs), description of a violent and disturbing murder, emotional manipulation, coarse language, mentions of blood/bruises, a joke about abortion, graphic violence, fingers breaking, underage smoking, self-inflicted burns, disturbing behavior from Richie

The third (and technically fourth) time Richie kissed him, it was the year after the ordeal with IT had finally ended, for the time being.

Things had been hard for all of them. Obviously. You don’t exactly just… bounce back from something like that.

They had all promised not to talk about it after they made their oath, and Eddie was more than happy to agree. The less time spent thinking about it, the better.

They had more or less resumed some semblance of normalcy. It was easier during the school year, when they had something pulling them together every day. Because, well. That was the thing. They were growing apart.

Eddie felt it getting worse every day. When Bill would take longer to return his phone calls, and Stan started spending nearly all his free time at his new job bagging groceries after school. Ben never invited them to the library anymore, and Mike said it was ‘just too busy’ at the farm every week for them to get together for movie nights on Saturdays like they used to.

Not to mention Bev moving away, which hit all of them hard, but seemed to hit Richie the hardest.

It wasn’t obvious at first, but Eddie started to notice Richie gradually becoming more and more withdrawn. Angrier. Quicker to react. His jokes got meaner. Darker. He was always a bit rowdy, but he started getting kicked out of class near constantly. Cussing out teachers and other students. Even threw a chair once. Not at anybody, but still.

He even got suspended for fighting at school, which Eddie gave him a real earful about. _It’s our first year of high school, Richie! You don’t want the teachers to think you’re a troublemaker!_

But Richie proved that he was a troublemaker. His grades were slipping tremendously, which especially worried Eddie. Richie was always talkative and hyperactive, but he was never a bad student. And God forbid he tried to talk to Richie about any of it.

_Mind your own fucking business, Eds._

Something in Richie broke after that summer. Well, something in all of them broke. But it was different with Richie. Something in him had _died_ , something bright behind his eyes that used to sparkle when he laughed. Then there was just… nothing. Just cold, metallic blue, thinly veiling whatever Eddie feared he might find if he kept looking deeper.

Which he was trying really hard not to do. He didn’t want to push, and he especially didn’t want to piss Richie off. Richie had a tendency to get violent when he was upset lately, and Eddie didn’t want to be at the receiving end of it.

Now that the school year was coming to an end, Eddie really felt the anxiety of the summer creeping up on him. He figured summertime would always be a particularly stressful time of year for the rest of his life, considering. But especially knowing that they’d have no excuse to see each other every day for the next 3 months… it made him feel almost sick to his stomach.

Luckily, despite his notably colder disposition, Richie still hung out with him every day. That felt good, at least. The other losers didn’t often make use of the clubhouse anymore, not really. Not like they used to.

So most days after school, he and Richie would trudge down to the barrens by themselves, after getting the usual excuses from the others for why they couldn’t hang out. _Can’t, I’ve got work. Can’t, gotta do homework. Can’t, got baseball practice, but maybe afterwards._ Which was fine.

“One of these days this place is going to fucking collapse. Maybe while we’re inside. Wouldn’t that be a fucking treat? I wonder if they’d even be able to find our bodies,” Richie laughed after opening the creaking hatch in the ground. Laughing as if he were telling a joke.

“That’s not funny, Rich,” Eddie pouted at him, standing with his hands on his hips as Richie forwent the ladder altogether and hopped down onto the dirt floor.

“It’s sort of funny. Funny to think about how we’d be worm food down here for months while they tried to figure out what the fuck happened to us, like if we got kidnapped or something. Old Man Penny might just decide to pop back up and make an appearance if he thinks someone else is stepping in on his turf,” Richie continued, and Eddie felt his breath catch in his throat.

Richie was standing at the bottom of the hole and looking up at him with an eyebrow raised behind his dark locks, which he had let grow out much longer than he usually did. Eddie hesitated for a long moment before letting out a sigh and climbing down the creaking ladder.

Once he did, Richie reached to close the hatch back up, leaving them in nearly complete darkness. Eddie shivered in the cool, heavy air, waiting for Richie to turn the flashlight on with his heart pounding in his chest.

“Rich, you promised.”

“I’ve made lots of promises, Eddie darling. Which one are you referring to specifically? The one where I promised to give you back your pen after English this morning? Because I broke it. Total accident, sorry about that,” Richie joked, but it sounded flat, and Eddie was still waiting for him to turn the fucking flashlight on.

“You know what I mean.”

“Oh, right, right. You must be referring to that promise I made to take your mom to get that abortion down in Portland. Well, your mother and I have talked about it, and we think you’re ready for the responsibility of having a baby brother. Gonna name him Dick Jr.,” Richie laughed at his own joke, and Eddie felt his neck getting sweaty. He couldn’t tell by the sound of his voice where Richie was in the room. It sounded like his voice was coming from everywhere.

“Richie.”

He didn’t respond, but Eddie could hear him moving, and he hugged himself tighter around the middle, glancing up at the little bit of sunlight shimmering through the cracks in the hatch door.

“That’s not it either, is it?” Richie’s voice suddenly appeared at his ear in a whisper, puffing hot against Eddie’s neck. Eddie nearly leapt out of his fucking skin at the sensation.

“You must be talking about that promise that all of _you_ made not to talk about the Super-Secret Summer of ’89. Well, I never fucking agreed to that. So if you all want to shy away from talking about Bozo like the mere mention of his name is gonna drag him back up from whatever fucking sulfur pit he crawled out of, that’s your prerogative. But you’re not going to fucking tell me what I’m allowed to say.”

Eddie was shivering so badly at that point that his teeth were clacking together, and he tried to move away from the sound of Richie’s voice, but a firm grip on his waist stopped him before he could.

“Richie, please. Can you just turn the light on? Please?”

“Why, Eds? Still afraid of the dark?” Richie asked before chuckling into Eddie’s ear, and Eddie wanted to turn around and tackle him to the ground, like he would have before. Like he would have a year ago, before all of this. But he didn’t.

“I’m not afraid of the dark! I just- just can’t see anything, and-”

“So are you afraid of me, then?”

Eddie hesitated before scoffing, shoving Richie away from him where he’d somehow gotten so close that he was nearly pressed against Eddie’s back. “As if. There’s nothing scary about you.”

Richie just laughed again; that weird, dark, chuckling laugh that Eddie hated, because it always felt like Richie was laughing at him. Laughing at his expense. He seemed to do that a lot, lately.

He let out an involuntary yelp when the scraping flick of a lighter sounded next to his ear, and he followed the soft glowing light as Richie lit a cigarette, watching the reflection of the flame dance in Richie’s amused eyes.

“Right.”

He finally moved to switch on the flood lamp, and Eddie nearly cried in relief once the small space was filled with light. He carefully took his backpack off as Richie bee lined for the portable cassette player and the shoebox full of tapes sitting next to it.

“We need to get some better fucking tapes. Next time we go to the thrift store we should see what they’ve got, we haven’t looked in a while,” he commented, picking up the little plastic boxes before tossing them back into the pile. “When Bev ditched us, she took all the fucking good ones with her.”

“I have some more tapes at my house that I could bring down,” Eddie offered with a shrug, and Richie rolled his eyes, taking a long drag on his cigarette.

“Right. Like we need more of the pussy shit you and Haystack listen to down here.”

“Well sorry I don’t like to listen to dudes screaming about Satan and getting their guts ripped out,” Eddie grumbled angrily, stomping over to a little bookshelf that Ben had made a few months back to flip through the comic books and paperback novels there.

“Oh, that reminds me,” Richie snapped his fingers before kneeling in front of his backpack, biting his cigarette between his front teeth as he rummaged around. He emerged moments later with a cassette tape in his hand, and Eddie watched with careful eyes as he went to put it in the cassette player, which he proceeded to carry over to the hammock.

He kicked his boots off before flopping himself down into it, and when he reached down a hand to press play on the small speaker box, Eddie’s teeth clenched immediately at the aggressive, angry song that filled the air around them.

“What the fuck is this?”

“Entombed. New album, just came out. I started listening to it in study hall earlier but Berger took my Walkman because she’s a cunt,” Richie explained, slowly exhaling the smoke from his lungs before letting his arm dangle lazily toward the floor, like he was somehow _relaxed_ listening to this shit.

“Where did you get it?”

“Bull Moose.”

“There’s no way Mr. Wickard sold you this tape without one of your parents there.”

“He sure didn’t.”

Eddie paused, watching as Richie rocked himself leisurely in the hammock, occasionally bringing his long arm back to his mouth for a puff on his cigarette. Richie had gotten so much taller since last summer. Broader, too. In fact, all of them had, really. All of them except Eddie.

“Did you- Did you _steal it?”_ Eddie asked accusatorily, and Richie glanced over at him with an eyebrow raised in amusement.

“Don’t sound so scandalized, Eds. Wasn’t the first time, won’t be the last time,” Richie shrugged, and Eddie’s nostrils flared.

Richie stole sometimes. Usually just stupid things, like candy or gum, or packs of cigarettes. Bottles of Coke, sometimes. But never stuff like that, and not from nice people like Mr. Wickard, who greeted them like old friends whenever they’d ride their bikes down to the record shop, and even gave Richie a free set of drumsticks when he told him that he was interested in learning how to play.

“Richie, that’s not cool, Mr. Wickard has never been anything but nice to us, and you shouldn’t be stealing. Especially not from him, since-”

Eddie cut himself off as the vocals for whatever song was playing came in, and he couldn’t help trying to decipher what words the vocalist could possibly be screaming, even though it was futile.

“Ugh, what is he even saying?”

Richie chuckled, flicking his cigarette butt into the dirt before beckoning Eddie over to him with his hand. “Come here and I’ll tell you.”

Eddie rolled his eyes but conceded, grabbing a random book from the shelf before stomping over to the hammock. He went to kick his shoes off, but apparently must have been taking too long, because Richie grabbed him by the wrist and pulled him on top of himself before he had the chance to.

Eddie let out a startled sound but allowed himself to be pulled, and Richie grabbed him by his knees, readjusting their legs until Eddie was firmly planted on top of him, with his legs on either side of Richie’s.

Eddie squirmed to get more comfortable before settling in, feeling the soft skin on his legs rubbing up against the stiff material of Richie’s black jeans with the holes in the knees, which he was still wearing, even though it was already June. He knew Richie was going for some sort of punky look, but Jesus, it was already so hot outside.

Richie reached out to untie Eddie’s sneakers one by one, taking them off for him and tossing them onto the ground next to his own boots. Eddie wriggled his toes in Richie’s face once his sneakers were off and Richie made a disgusted face, grabbing him by both ankles to shove his legs back down on top of his own.

“Your feet stink.”

“Your breath stinks.”

“You’ve got your mom’s pussy to thank for that.”

“Ew!” Eddie screeched, kicking a foot out to hit Richie in the chest as he laughed, and Richie grabbed him by his calves to hold his legs still. “Are you gonna tell me what the fucking song is saying or not, dickwad?”

Richie laughed for a moment longer before reaching a hand into his front pocket, pulling out his pack of cigarettes and lighter. He lit another cigarette, and Eddie had to stop himself from bitching about it, since it hadn’t gone so well in the past.

Richie used to smoke occasionally, with Bev. But he started smoking a lot more after last summer, and Eddie had voiced his concern about it one day, and Richie hadn’t liked that.

_Do you want to end up with an iron lung, Richie? My uncle has one because he can’t breathe on his own anymore, because he smoked cigarettes when he was a kid too, and-_

_Jesus fucking Christ, Eddie, would you shut the fuck up for one fucking minute and mind your own god damn business for once?_

He’d been shocked that Richie had spoken to him that way, so he had shut up. For many minutes. For the rest of the minutes it took them to walk home, in fact, where he trudged up to his room and tried to remember if Richie had ever spoken to him so harshly before.

“Well, Eds, if you really want to know,” Richie began, breathing out a cloud of cigarette smoke as amusement already started to dance in his eyes. Which was a look that made Eddie nervous, nowadays. “It’s about a guy who sticks a curling iron up some girls wet, hairy pussy and fucks her with it until she dies, and then he leaves her corpse to rot,” he laughed, and Eddie felt his face contort in a mix of horror and disgust, which made Richie laugh even harder.

“That’s- That’s horrible! That’s fucking gross!” Eddie shrieked, and Richie was practically cackling at that point, only quieting himself to take a drag on his cigarette.

“That’s metal.”

“Well it’s fucking disgusting and- and _abhorrent._ Who would do something like that to somebody?”

Richie shrugged, looking at Eddie with dark, calculating eyes, which seemed to be the only way he really looked at Eddie anymore.

“Maybe she deserved it,” he suggested, which must not have gotten the reaction he wanted, because he took another thoughtful drag on his cigarette before speaking again. “Or maybe she _liked it._ Maybe she wanted it.”

“Nobody would want something like that, Richie.”

Richie chuckled, which meant he was closer to getting the reaction he wanted, and Eddie really didn’t want to give it to him, whatever it was.

“You never know, Eds. Some people will do all kinds of fucked up shit to get their rocks off. Some people get off on the pain,” he went on before spitting into his palm, and then he took his nearly finished cigarette and pressed the burning ember into his hand.

Eddie watched with wide, terrified eyes, and Richie didn’t even yell. Didn’t even flinch. Just stared at Eddie with those eyes, laughing once he got the reaction Eddie guessed he was fishing for all along.

“Richie! Don’t fucking do shit like that! You could give yourself a third degree burn!” Eddie shrieked, and Richie wiped his hand on the outside of the hammock with a roll of his eyes.

“I’m just messing with you, Eds. It wasn’t that bad, see?” he said, but when he held up his palm, there was an angry, red circle right in the center of it that told Eddie it was, in fact, that bad.

“Have you ever thought about not messing with me for one fucking minute of your life?” Eddie griped, and Richie just continued to smirk at him from the other end of the hammock.

“Not once, actually; no.”

Eddie huffed and pulled his book up to cover his eyes, opening it and pretending to read the words there. He couldn’t focus on them with that horrible voice screeching those horrible words in the background, but it was better than giving Richie the satisfaction of seeing the pout he couldn’t wipe off of his face.

A few moments of something resembling peace passed by before Eddie heard Richie lighting _another_ cigarette, and he just couldn’t hold it back anymore.

“Do you have to smoke like a fucking chimney while I’m down here too?” he bitched, peeking over the top of his book to shoot Richie an irritated glare. Richie just nodded, and Eddie rolled his eyes, tugging his book back up to cover them.

“Don’t you wanna try it? You know, now that you know you don’t actually have asthma?” Richie asked, jostling Eddie’s fanny pack where it sat on his waist, making him flush red in embarrassment at the inhaler they both knew was still tucked away inside.

“No, I don’t, because smoking is gross.”

Richie didn’t say anything in response, which was suspicious, but Eddie forced himself not to question it. A moment of peace with Richie was rare nowadays, and he wasn’t about to ruin it if Richie was willing to back down from getting the last word in this one time, which neither of them were ever willing to do.

Eddie started to actually focus on the words in front of him at some point, and he realized he was smack in the middle of one of Mike’s books about World War II, which was incredibly boring. Still, he continued to read it, because they were having a peaceful moment, and he didn’t want to ruin it.

Which is part of why he also didn’t say anything when he felt Richie start to brush his fingers along the inside of his bare knee, feather-light and gentle. He almost flinched at the sensation before stopping himself.

It wasn’t uncommon for Richie to do things like that. Sometimes when they were alone, Richie would caress him on his arms and legs, or pet through his hair, or run his fingers all along Eddie’s back and his belly sometimes. He hadn’t done it in a long time, though, and the action took Eddie by surprise.

He relaxed back into the hammock and continued reading, but he couldn’t help being hyper aware of Richie’s fingers against his skin, and how he could swear that Richie kept moving them further and further up his thigh toward the hem of his shorts with each trip back down to his kneecap. Which was okay, it’s not like Richie hadn’t ever touched his legs before.

He stopped midway up Eddie’s thigh to rub a little circle there with his thumb, and Eddie couldn’t help squirming that time, feeling almost as if his skin was suddenly too tight for his body. Richie kept doing it, over and over, and Eddie couldn’t focus on his book anymore because he was too focused on keeping his breathing steady over the pounding of his heartbeat in his ears.

“Are you sure you don’t want to try?”

“Y-Yes, Rich.”

There was another pause before Richie’s hand suddenly slid all the way up to the hem of Eddie’s shorts, and Eddie let out a shaky breath, tightening his already aching grip on the book in his hands.

“It’s good to try new things, Eddie,” Richie said softly, almost _coyly,_ and the sound of it sent Eddie into a panic. But still, he sat there like a statue, even when Richie started rubbing his thumb in circles over his skin again, this time right on the hem of his shorts.

“I- I don’t want to.”

He was too occupied trying to regulate his breathing to react much when Richie suddenly shifted to sit up in the hammock, and he let out a genuine yelp when Richie ripped the book from his hands, tossing it carelessly to the other side of the room. And then, Eddie was face to face with those icy blue eyes with nowhere to escape to, and he felt trapped, and Richie was still holding onto his leg with his hand that wasn’t holding a lit cigarette.

He was staring at Richie the whole time, so he shouldn’t have been surprised when he leaned forward to press their mouths together, but he was. He let out another startled yelp as Richie’s moist lips gently pressed against his own, and after the initial shock, he calmed down. Because Richie had done this before, and Eddie never really knew why he did it the first two times, but it was fine.

Except it wasn’t fine, because Richie didn’t pull away after a few seconds like he had the first two times. He started moving his lips against Eddie’s, and Eddie panicked and did the only thing he could think to, which was to move his lips along with them.

He could feel Richie’s glasses poking him in the cheek, and Richie’s mouth tasted like cigarette smoke, but Eddie still found himself feeling excited by this. Felt himself enjoying it. Richie was kissing him, and it wasn’t a quick, childish pressing of mouths. Richie was really, really kissing him.

Richie encouraged him to open his mouth by pressing his tongue between Eddie’s lips, and Eddie wasn’t sure if he quite wanted to tongue kiss, because he thought it was kind of gross, but he did it anyway. And as soon as his mouth was open, Richie touched their tongues together and released the smoke he’d been holding in that entire time, flooding Eddie’s mouth and throat and lungs with it.

Eddie panicked and tried to suck in a breath, which only succeeded in bringing the smoke deeper into his lungs, and he pulled away from Richie’s mouth, scrambling to get away from him. In his clamoring, he managed to fling himself out of the hammock, leaving him on his back on the dirt floor and coughing smoke out of his lungs.

Richie was howling with laughter, staring down at Eddie from the hammock with an almost mirthful glee in his eyes. Eddie sucked in a few clean, heaving breaths once he’d cleared his lungs of smoke, and he wanted to yell, wanted to bitch at Richie and scream at him and fucking throw things at him and tackle him to the ground. Instead, he found himself crying, looking up at Richie where he was still seated in the hammock, puffing on his cigarette and looking down at Eddie like a wounded baby deer that he’d decided to single out from the herd for his dinner.

“Richie,” Eddie tried to yell, but it came out as a pathetic whine as Richie swung his legs over the side of the hammock to lift himself out of it. Eddie didn’t have the time to react and scramble away before Richie climbed on top of him, pressing his full weight down into Eddie’s hips.

“Did you like it, Eds?” he asked playfully, or cruelly. Eddie couldn’t tell the difference anymore.

“Why did you do that?” Eddie asked him, his voice coming out strangled through his tears.

Richie just shrugged, and the malicious glint never left his eyes. “Because it was funny,” he stated, taking one last drag on his cigarette before flicking the butt into the dirt.

Eddie’s body finally decided to try and fight back, to get away, to push at Richie’s shoulders and hips and legs to just get him _away,_ but Richie was so much bigger than him. Bigger than he thought, and apparently stronger, because he didn’t budge.

“It’s not funny!”

Richie grabbed Eddie’s forearms where he was beating against his chest with his fists and pinned them quickly on either side of his head, sending Eddie into panic mode. He leaned down and got up real close to Eddie’s face, pressing their noses together, before releasing another cloud of cigarette smoke between them. It made Eddie’s eyes water and his throat burn, and Richie was laughing again like it was the funniest joke he’d ever heard.

“It’s funny to me, Eddie my love.”

Eddie started thrashing underneath him, trying to dislodge Richie’s heavy body from his lap, but Richie proceeded to squeeze down harder on his forearms, pressing them further into the dirt.

Eddie felt his previously broken arm ache at the force of it and he felt queasy, remembering how badly it hurt when it broke, and the circumstances under which it broke. The memories flashed like fireworks behind his eyes; the leper, the ceiling, the fridge, the fucking clown. His breaths started getting ragged, and Richie was showing no sign of mercy in those… those fucking _empty_ blue eyes.

“Rich, y-you’re hurting my arm,” he begged through a sob, but Richie didn’t let up his grip at all, and proceeded to grin down at Eddie so wide that nearly all of his teeth were showing.

“Awe, come on. You used to love wrestling with me, don’t you remember?” he asked with a fake pout on his lips, though it broke when he grinned again at the feeling of Eddie struggling underneath him.

“Richie, please, please get off of me.”

“Guess you’re not much of a match for me anymore. Late bloomer, huh?” Richie teased, and that made Eddie start crying all over again, trying with renewed determination to fight his way out from underneath Richie’s body. Richie slid his grip up to squeeze Eddie’s wrists instead, which wasn’t any better, because Eddie was terrified that Richie might snap them in his fists if he squeezed hard enough. If he wanted to.

“You’ve always been small, but jeez, Eds. Did the puberty fairy just skip over your house altogether? Do you even have hair, you know, _down there?_ ” Richie teased, nodding toward Eddie’s crotch. Eddie went crimson, and he hated himself for the shame that burned through him.

“Stop it, Richie,” Eddie tried to say firmly, but it came out as a whisper, and he felt his muscles getting too tired to fight back anymore.

“Don’t act so shy, Eds. We used to play doctor together when we were little boys, remember? And, well, _you’re_ still a little boy, so what’s the difference now?”

“Richie, stop it!”

“Awe, come on, Eds. Don’t you want to play with me anymore? I like playing with you.”

Eddie went limp underneath him, resolving to simply sob brokenly against the dirt floor as Richie laughed above him, still not letting up his grip on Eddie’s wrists.

“Richie, you’re- you’re scaring me,” he admitted in a whisper, and Richie grinned wolfishly, leaning down to breathe into Eddie’s ear.

“I thought you said I wasn’t scary, sweetheart. Thought you said you weren’t afraid of me,” he hissed, before pulling back to look over Eddie’s struggle-weary body and tear-stained face. He licked over his teeth and his lips at the sight of it, and Eddie’s belly flipped around and around.

He’d truthfully never been afraid of Richie before that moment. Richie did things that Eddie didn’t agree with sometimes, and lately, he’d been much moodier and quicker to react. Eddie found himself watching what he said around Richie, which he _never_ did before, but he wouldn’t say that he was ever afraid.

But he was afraid right then, watching Richie grin broadly down at him, like this was the most fun he’d ever had. Watching Eddie squirm underneath him. Watching Eddie cry.

Both of their eyes snapped up to the hatch in the ceiling as it began to creak open, and Eddie tried feebly to move his arms one more time before relaxing his tired muscles back against the ground. Richie made no move to get off of him, not even when Bill began climbing down the creaky ladder.

Once Bill made it down he turned to look at them, and froze as he took in the image: Eddie, crying brokenly in the dirt with Richie holding him down. Eddie could only imagine what Bill was thinking in that moment.

“What the f-fuck is going on? Richie, what are you d-do-doing?”

Eddie sincerely believed that would make Richie snap out of it. Out of whatever the fuck was going on with him. Instead, Richie let out an amused chuckle, finally releasing Eddie’s wrists as he stood to come face-to-face with Bill. But Bill was still watching Eddie on the floor, where he slowly sat up and wiped away his tears before rubbing gently at his wrists, and he saw Bill’s nostrils flare.

“Richie, what-what did you do to him?”

“Nothing he didn’t want me to.”

“Richie.”

“Fine, fine, definitely some stuff he didn’t want me to. But nothing too bad, promise. I could have done much worse,” Richie replied slyly, and Eddie could see how mad Bill was getting by the way his fists were clenched so tightly at his sides.

“This isn’t fucking funny, Richie! What is your p-problem lately?!”

Richie got up right in Bill’s face, until their chests were bumping together.

“Had the same problem for a while now, Denbrough. Nearly fucking dying because your friend dragged you into some vendetta he has against a demon clown can leave a boy feeling jaded,” Richie hissed, and Eddie wanted to get up and break things up before it turned into a fight, but his body was just so tired.

“If you have a fucking problem with me, have it with m-me. Don’t take it out on Eddie, he didn’t-didn’t do anything to you.”

“But it’s so much fun to take it out on Eddie. You should try it sometime,” Richie laughed gleefully, his eyes full of mirth as he glanced back down at Eddie, still crying on the ground, looking up at him with wide, terrified eyes. “On second thought, don’t. He’s mine. Find your own.”

“L-Leave him the fuck alone, Richie, I mean it. I won’t tell you again,” Bill said with all the authority of a father figure, and Eddie felt a horrible chill go through him at the howling laughter that Richie gave in response.

“W-W-W-What are you gonna do if I don’t, B-B-Big Bill? Gonna fucking punch me again? Because I really, really wish you would,” Richie challenged lowly, and Eddie finally snapped out of it, scrambling to his feet just as the both of them started tensing up for a hit.

“Don’t! Don’t, please. It was all- it was all a misunderstanding, Billy, I promise. It’s fine. We were just- just wrestling, you know, just- messing around and playing too rough. That’s it,” Eddie tried to explain, and Richie broke out of his fighting stance to sling an arm around Eddie’s shoulders, giving Bill a casual smirk.

“Yeah, Billy, we were just playing,” Richie agreed with mock innocence, dropping that same arm down to Eddie’s waist. He squeezed much too hard at Eddie’s hip bone, but Eddie obediently swallowed down the yelp that wanted to escape, earning him a soothing caress against his skin in the same spot.

Bill watched their exchange with concerned, calculating eyes, before shoving Richie away from Eddie’s body. Eddie startled at the force of it, nearly tripping over his own feet as Richie’s arm was ripped from around him, and he felt panic settle like a stone in his belly.

“Get out of here, Rich.”

“Bill, please, it wasn’t- it wasn’t what it looked like. I’m fine, okay? I promise,” Eddie tried desperately to explain, but Richie was already tugging his boots back on and slinging his backpack onto his shoulders. “Richie, please don’t go.”

“Sorry, Eds; King William has spoken. Who am I but a peasant unfit to question his authority,” Richie seethed, and Eddie wanted to beg him not to leave, because he was absolutely sure that if Richie climbed up that ladder and out of the clubhouse, all chances of things ever being the same between them would vanish.

“Richie, Richie don’t leave! Please,” Eddie begged, and the unwavering chill in Richie’s expression made the stone of panic in his belly grow into a boulder.

Richie grabbed him by the arm again and tugged him closer, and Eddie felt Bill tensing up next to him as he tripped over his own feet to come face to face with Richie, staring up at him with tears in his eyes all over again.

“Don’t cry, baby,” Richie told him tenderly, but nothing in his expression said that he didn’t want Eddie to be crying. In fact, he looked enraptured watching the tears well up in his brown eyes before rolling over his freckles and down his cheeks.

He brought his other hand up to wrap his fingers into the hair at the back of Eddie’s head, and Eddie wanted to be afraid of the look in Richie’s eyes, but he didn’t have the mind to be. He pulled Eddie’s head back further before pressing their lips together again, in front of Bill, and Eddie closed his eyes, which meant he didn’t see the cold, challenging glare that Richie was directing toward Bill the entire time.

Eddie just stood there and allowed Richie to slot their lips together briefly before he pulled away, dropping his hand from Eddie’s hair down to his chin to pull Eddie’s eyes up to meet his own. “See ya ‘round, sweetheart,” he assured with a wink before pushing past Bill and climbing up the ladder and out of the clubhouse room.

Eddie didn’t have any of the answers that Bill wanted after Richie left. _What happened, Eddie? What did Richie do to you? Since when do you guys kiss each other? Did he hurt you? Did he do something bad to you, Eddie? You can tell me if he did._

To be fair, Eddie also didn’t know a lot of the answers to those questions. He wasn’t quite sure what had happened. Richie didn’t really _do_ anything to him, right? Not in the way he thought Bill was suggesting, at least. And, well, technically they kissed for the first time as little kids, but it wasn’t something they did often, so that was a hard question to answer, too.

Richie did hurt him, though. But it wasn’t that bad, so Eddie said no. He told Bill that Richie didn’t hurt him; he really didn’t do anything bad to him. He would have to wear long sleeves to school the whole next week to cover the bruises on his arms and his wrists, but he figured Richie didn’t mean to squeeze so hard.

When he saw Richie at school the next day, he ran up to him where he was hanging out with this group of kids who listened to the same music as he did and dressed the same way as him and skipped class to smoke cigarettes behind the school. He felt a little stupid running up to approach them in his running shorts and hooded sweatshirt, but he just wanted to talk to Richie, since he wouldn’t return his phone calls the previous night.

The girl he was talking to happened to be mid-sentence when Eddie approached them, and Richie turned fully away from her, which made Eddie stop in his tracks. He didn’t want to interrupt their conversation, but Richie was fully focused on him now, and the girl he was talking to had closed her mouth with a snap. She looked more than a little perturbed about being ignored for the short little weird kid that Richie was always hanging around. At least, that’s what they thought of him.

Richie greeted him with a smile, and Eddie’s anxieties leaked out of his body immediately, and he gave Richie a hug around the waist. It’s not something he’d normally do at school, but he’d been so terrified all night that Richie would hate him now, and he just couldn’t help it. Richie didn’t seem to mind, though, because he rested his chin on top of Eddie’s head as he was squeezed around the middle, and when Eddie pulled his head away from his chest, Richie was wearing a soft expression. Softer than Eddie had seen on him in months. Which was good.

Eddie wanted to speak to him, but all of his new friends were still there, and he shyly pressed against Richie’s arm instead. That seemed to be enough, though, because Richie sent them away, telling them he’d meet them behind the school at the start of next period. As much as Eddie wanted to bitch at him for planning to skip class, he didn’t. He didn’t want to risk what seemed like a good mood from him.

“Richie, I’m sorry,” was the first thing to spill out of his mouth, and he really wasn’t sure why. He didn’t think he had anything to really be sorry for, but it came out anyway. “Sorry… um, sorry about you and Bill,” Eddie eventually settled on, and Richie rolled his eyes.

“Denbrough’s a self-important cunt who should mind his own business, what else is new,” Richie bit, and Eddie went still in shock.

“R-Richie, he didn’t mean it, he was just worried-”

“There you go, defending him again. Is that all you do? Just defend everything Bill does?” Richie accused, and Eddie felt Richie’s good mood slipping away, and his own sense of relief slipping away with it.

“N-No, I just- he was- I talked to him about it after, and he said he’s worried about _you._ And so am I, Richie; we all are. You just seem like- like-”

“Like a different person? I am, Eds. Puberty and teenage angst have really done a number on me,” Richie joked, then leaned in right up close to Eddie’s ear, gripping him firmly on the bicep. “Then again, so did spending all summer trying to murder an ancient, eldritch clown _thing_ in a fucking sewer, but all of you seem to have just conveniently glossed over that part.”

“Richie, we’re all- we all feel… _traumatized_ by what happened,” Eddie whispered, and he felt his heart rate kick up immediately. He hadn’t spoken about this, even vaguely, in months. “But you seem like- you seem- you seem _angry._ You seem angry with… with us.”

“Eddie darling, I’m not angry with you,” Richie assured, bringing his hand up to caress Eddie’s cheek. Eddie wanted to tell him to quit it, because they were at school, and everyone already thought they were gay for each other. But he didn’t. “I’m just mad at Billy boy. It was all his fault, anyway. Really, the whole fucking thing could have been avoided if he had just sucked it the fuck up and played with his brother. Imagine all the grief we would have been spared if he hadn’t sent Georgie out to be clown kibble?”

Eddie was frozen still at the callousness of Richie’s words, and he felt his tongue sticking to the roof of his mouth. “Richie, Bill didn’t know what was going to happen. How was he supposed to know that- that _IT_ would take Georgie?”

“It doesn’t really matter, though, does it? Even if there’s not a serial killing, child eating clown on the loose, you shouldn’t really send your six year old brother outside alone in a rainstorm. Most days I want to fucking strangle Piper, and I’d still never do something like that to her,” Richie argued, and Eddie didn’t have a younger sibling himself, so maybe he just didn’t get it. “There’s just so much cancer in the world, Eddie my love. If it hadn’t been a child-eating clown, it could have been a fucking pedo, or a tree struck by lightning to crush him to death. He might not have known what would happen, but the countless shitty things that _could_ have happened should have been enough for him to step up to the fucking plate.”

Eddie was getting a bit frightened, mostly because Richie’s grip on his arm had been tightening incrementally throughout this conversation, and some ridiculous part of his brain was worried it would burst like an overstuffed sausage. The fright got worse when Richie leaned down again, his blue eyes narrowing. “If you really love somebody- if you really care about somebody- you take care of them. You don’t let them out of your sight. You make sure that they never have the opportunity to get themselves hurt if you’re not there to protect them from whatever is threatening to hurt them.”

Eddie must have been cowering, or the expression on his face must have given away his unease, because Richie looked carefully over his face before licking over his lips. Eddie thought he was going to ask again, ask him _Are you afraid of me, Eddie?_ Which Eddie couldn’t truthfully say no to. Not that he was being truthful yesterday, either, but something in Richie’s expression had his insides flipping around, and he felt like Richie was trying to dissect him without cutting him open and spilling his guts.

Instead, he seemed to take in Eddie’s outfit, and his head cocked in confusion. “Why are you wearing a sweatshirt? It’s June,” Richie criticized, and Eddie huffed.

“You’re one to talk. All you wear are fucking black jeans and those big heavy boots,” Eddie tried to joke, but he also urgently tried to twist his arm out of Richie’s grip at the same time, which only made Richie squeeze harder. And apparently gave him away, because realization seemed to click in Richie’s eyes at the small, pained expression that ghosted over Eddie’s face as he tightened his grip, and he slid his hand down to grab Eddie’s hand and roll the sleeve of his sweatshirt up.

Eddie protested quietly and tried to turn away from the rest of the students in the hall, so that his arm was shielded by both of their bodies as Richie exposed his pale skin and the purpling, finger-shaped bruises mottling his wrists and forearms.

Richie’s eyes widened and Eddie felt weirdly guilty, for a moment; guilty that he let Richie see them, as though he did something wrong for having them in the first place. Which he knew was stupid, but he didn’t want Richie to feel bad, because he was okay. They didn’t even hurt that bad, and he could cover them up easily, so it was fine.

But he wasn’t so sure that Richie did feel bad. He was sort of just. Staring at them. Like a small child who’s just learned of death might stare at roadkill, without the mind to really be bothered by the gore of it all. Just fascinated by the death of something more delicate than itself.

Richie licked over his lips and turned his eyes onto Eddie’s face, and Eddie was sort of afraid to hear what he was going to say, but the interruption that came was much, much worse. Bill and Stan had come up on their left side without either of them realizing it, which was a frightening thought in and of itself. And Bill snatched Eddie’s arm away, glancing down at it when Eddie hissed out in pain, and rage bloomed on his face instantly.

“D-Did you fucking do that to him, you fuck?” Bill accused, looking sort of ridiculous for being so angry, considering the cool, calm expression that Richie had where he was leaning back against his locker. He had his eyes locked onto Bill’s hand on Eddie’s arm, where it was gently pressing into the bruises he had left there.

Bill must have noticed, because he pulled Eddie behind him protectively, and Richie’s eyes snapped back up to meet Bill’s with a casual gaze.

“I’ve done lots of things to Eddie, Billy boy. You’ve gotta be more specific.”

Bill’s face went red in anger, and Eddie tried to step between them, but Stan stopped him with a firm hand on his shoulder. “Eddie, don’t,” he said quietly into Eddie’s ear, and he wilted at the sound of it.

“Why are you fucking with him, R-Richie? Is this all p-part of you deciding to be a fucking prick lately? Now you’re gonna p-pick on Eddie?”

Richie’s smirk returned to his face and he shrugged, still leaned back against his locker. “Well, if I’m gonna be a delinquent, I might as well be a bully, too. Eddie’s an easy target, and someone’s gotta fill that role, now that Hockstetter is dead and Bowers is in the loony bin. Don’t want the poor boy going soft now that there’s not a constant threat to keep him on his toes.”

“That’s not funny, Richie. Just stop,” Stan begged, tucking Eddie into his side protectively.

“Who’s joking? I mean, the boy’s gotta grow up sometime, right? If nearly getting murdered by a cannibal clown a handful of times didn’t do the trick, what will?”

“Shut up, Richie,” Bill ordered, and it sounded like a threat. Which it clearly was, based on how he had his hands tensed at his sides.

“Just saying, Big Bill, Eddie needs somebody to make him into a man. And I’m more than willing to accept that responsibility,” Richie glanced over at Eddie and winked, and Eddie went bright red in the cheeks.

“Richie, shut the fuck up. I mean it.”

“About which part? Eddie, or the clown that you almost let murder him? I’ll be honest, Billy, this whole protector role you seem to have thrust upon yourself sort of pales when you consider that you let your brother die and almost let all of us die, too.”

Bill’s fist shot out and smacked Richie in the teeth, and Eddie let out a scream as Stan pulled the two of them away from the danger. The other students still gathered in the hallway started to notice a fight ensuing, and Richie seemed almost excited as he wiped the blood from his lips, looking around at the eyes of his peers watching the scene unfold.

“Still hit like a bitch,” Richie hissed before punching Bill in the nose, then immediately shoving him onto the ground as Bill was thrown off-balance by the impact. He climbed on top of him and landed another punch to his face, and Bill reached out for Richie’s wrists, only to have Richie snatch one of his hands by the fingers and bend them back the opposite way. 

Bill cried out in pain and nearly succeeded in throwing Richie off of his lap, but Richie recovered quickly, still bending Bill’s fingers back harshly at the knuckle.

“Fuck, Richie, stop, _stop!”_ he yelled, and Stan was yelling too, yelling at him to stop while Eddie sat there frozen, still tucked against Stan’s side as Richie tried to break Bill’s fingers.

“You’re a fucking pussy, Denbrough. You always have been,” he laughed cruelly as Bill started to scream in pain, and then there was a sickening sound like teeth tearing into flesh. Bill’s screams became so loud that some onlookers began covering their ears, and Stan was screaming for a teacher, and Eddie couldn’t fucking get a breath into his lungs to scream at all.

He didn’t remember consciously making the decision to do so, but he suddenly shoved Stan away from himself before lunging toward them, ignoring Stan’s cry of “Eddie, don’t!”

Eddie didn’t think before he was throwing himself at Richie’s body, effectively taking him off-guard as they went crashing backwards, with Eddie landing on top of him. He didn’t really think through what he was doing past that point, though, and once Richie’s dilated, enraged eyes landed on him and realized what he’d done, Eddie started panicking all over again.

“Get the fuck off of me, Eddie,” Richie growled, but he didn’t wait to see if Eddie would move himself. He picked him up and dropped him onto the ground on his ass before moving like he was going to climb on top of him, but at that point, teachers had already come running into the hall. One of them grabbed Richie around the waist and dragged him off of Eddie before a second one pulled his arms behind his back in a restraint, and Eddie lied there as Richie stared down at him with malice in his eyes, trying to struggle out of the hold.

“Yeah, Eddie? Feel fucking proud of yourself, defending the honor of your fucking boyfriend? Always knew you were in love with that mush-mouthed cunt,” Richie yelled before spitting a mouthful of blood onto the ground, right next to where Bill was cradling his mangled fingers and Stan was trying to get him to stand and go to the nurse.

Eddie just sat there and stared as Richie was taken off, struggling the entire time that he was led down the hall. He broke out of the teacher’s grip momentarily before the second one grabbed him, and the two of them nearly had to carry Richie down the hallway. And all the while, he had those cold, empty eyes on Eddie as he sat frozen on the ground, watching Richie get dragged away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Soooo..... basically i'm uploading the first 3 chapters all at the same time since i have them written. that's that on that please drop a comment and tell me how you're feeling about this


	3. The Wretched

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The clouds will part  
> And the sky cracks open  
> And God himself will reach   
> His fucking arm through  
> Just to push you down  
> Just to hold you down  
> Stuck in this hole  
> With the shit and the piss  
> And it's hard to believe  
> It could come down to this  
> Back at the beginning  
> Sinking   
> Spinning

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [ Come see me on Tumblr! ](https://bimmyshrug.tumblr.com/)
> 
> ['Osculum Obscenum' playlist](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5lEdq6H9GE0hvXRLOKNMy1?si=8sBkPtTQSDeFOYURZmonWw)  
> By now y'all should know so I'm gonna stop saying it.
> 
> CW/TW MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS: Bullying, feminization, internalized homophobia, sexual language, digital penetration, physical violence, blood, emotional manipulation, aggressive sexual advances, obsessive/possessive behavior, mentions of adolescent sexuality (masturbation and sexual fantasies)

Life is so, so fucking unfair.

Not that that’s news or anything. Eddie is very well versed in how unfair life is. Has been forever.

But this feels like a cruel, sick joke. Like he’s a doll in the hands of an evil child who’s holding him over a gas stove, testing to see how close his plastic face can get to the flame before it starts to melt.

Three. Three out of his six fucking classes. He supposes that’s what he gets for trying to take it easy for his last semester. Taking an extra gym class, and art history, and some class just called “calligraphy” seemed like an amazing idea at the time, when all Eddie was thinking about was how he can finally relax. He’s only got a few more required classes to take for graduation, and then he’s done. So he decided to take some nice, relaxing electives.

And honestly, he should have known Richie would be in at least one of them, considering he’s a lazy fucking prick who takes the easiest classes he can get away with every semester, but _three?_ Perhaps Eddie has been spoiled by the bliss of nearly 2 whole years of having no classes at all with Richie, because Richie is in remedial everything, and Eddie got moved up to honors at the start of sophomore year. Maybe this is his fucking hubris showing, and he’s finally flown too close to the god damn sun.

And of course, _of course_ he ended up being late to gym class because he had a meeting with his guidance counselor to finalize some paperwork for his track and field scholarship. Of course he didn’t have the advantage of seeing the boys who would be in his class in the locker room beforehand, so he could at least have mentally prepared properly knowing that Richie would be there.

Life just isn’t that kind. So when Eddie comes walking into the gymnasium, tugging his socks up his calves after class has already started, he nearly grinds his teeth down to a fucking powder as soon as he hears the low wolf whistle, and that annoying fucking voice call out “Damn, Kaspbrak. Did you lose the other half of those shorts?”

And of course everyone in their class immediately looks over at him and laughs, because Richie made a fucking scene, because that’s all he fucking does. And of course Eddie goes bright red in embarrassment, as most people would if a room full of their peers were staring and laughing at them. And of course, instead of yelling something back when they lock eyes and Richie throws a heavy wink and a smirk at him, Eddie stands there like a deer in the headlights until Coach Tanner blows his whistle and calls out, “That’s enough, Tozier.”

And of course Eddie thinks of all the best comebacks after he is already running warm-up laps around the gym, glaring daggers at the back of Richie’s head where he is jogging five paces ahead of him.

_Nice stupid fucking face, fuckface._

_Yeah, lost them in your mom’s fucking bedroom last night._

_Did you lose the other half of your fucking IQ?_

That last one is pretty good, he thinks.

But at least it’ll be over once gym ends, right? Just one period of trying to force himself to block out the sound of Richie’s ridiculously fucking loud voice, and his stupid fucking laugh, and his annoying _everything,_ and Eddie will be free.

He even manages to avoid Richie in the showers after class, somehow, which feels like a miracle. Well, _almost_ manages to avoid him. Eddie nearly sprints back to the locker room after class and scrubs himself down so fast that only two other boys even enter the shower by the time he’s finished, and as he’s keeping his head down and rushing over to get dressed, he hears that fucking voice again.

“Holy fuck, I guess all the rumors were right. You do finish fast.”

And as much as Eddie might want to fucking scream until his throat is hoarse and bloody, he settles for throwing a glare up at Richie’s stupid fucking smirking face before tightening his towel around his waist and storming off. Because he isn’t about to start an argument with Richie in a locker room full of naked boys, including themselves. Not the time nor the place.

And honestly, after surviving that ordeal, he feels pretty proud of himself. One class won’t be _so_ so bad. He can just ignore Richie and his cruel teasing until he eventually gets bored and stops doing it, and then it’ll be smooth sailing. Except for the fact that he’s been doing it for two fucking years and still hasn’t stopped, but hey, he has to run out of material at some point, right?

He sees Stan and Bill at lunch, which is nice, at least. They might not hang out like they used to, but it’s still nice to get to see them at school. It almost makes it feel like nothing’s changed.

“How are your classes so far?” Stan asks, with a fork in one hand and the other nestled inside of his girlfriend’s on top of the table. She’s a year below them and her name is Patty, and she’s a cashier at Freese’s, too. Eddie is happy for them, but it’s weird seeing Stan with a girlfriend. Weird thinking about how different things are now.

“M-Mine are good, so far. Not c-confident I’ll pass Spanish, but what else is new,” Bill replies softly, and Eddie really does try to hold in his sigh, but it still slips through his lips, capturing the attention of the others.

“Richie is in my fucking gym class,” he gripes, and Stan and Bill let out tandem groans, while Patty cocks her head in confusion.

“Richie Tozier?”

“Unfortunately.”

“Does he give you a hard time?” she asks innocently enough, but Eddie can’t help rolling his eyes.

“Understatement, I’d say. I seem to be his favorite punchline. I’m surprised you haven’t seen it, honestly. He loves an audience,” Eddie grumbles, stabbing at a carrot with his fork before chewing it between his teeth.

“Yeah, I saw him outside during break earlier giving some poor freshman shit for bumping into him and making him drop a cigarette. He seems like a real asshole,” she comments, and Eddie’s head throbs in pain.

“Eddie, if he g-gives you too much shit, let me know. Okay?” Bill says firmly, and Eddie nods, even though he won’t. The last fucking thing he wants is for Bill to confront Richie again. The results would be nothing short of catastrophic, he’s sure.

“Sure thing. Thanks Bill.”

He barely manages to accept the reality that he has to spend a whole semester in gym class with Richie, which makes it all the more heart crushing when he walks into art history for 5th period and sees that stupid fucking mop of inky hair already seated at the back of the class. He’s flirting with some underclassmen girl who probably doesn’t know any better, and decided to subject herself to sitting next to him, fooled by the handsome, charming mask he pulls on over his fucking Cheshire grin.

Eddie isn’t good at hiding his upset, apparently, because Richie smirks again when he sees Eddie walking stiffly to an open seat at the table in front of him, since it’s the only fucking one left. Or maybe that’s just what Richie’s face does when he sees him now.

“Awe, baby, did you miss me?” he teases, making kissing sounds at the back of Eddie’s head. Eddie doesn’t engage and refuses to turn around, which seems to deter him for a moment. That, or the poor, naïve girl he’s chatting up is starting to lose interest, and he’s got to reel her back in before saying something crueler, so that he doesn’t seem like a total asshole and ruin his chances of feeling her up under the bleachers next period.

And that seems to be the case, because he hears her giggling sweetly at whatever gross shit Richie must be whispering in her ear before he tries again to get a rise out of Eddie. “So, did you buy those jeans in the kid’s section, or the women’s section? The length says ‘kids,’ but the way they hug all your feminine curves has me leaning toward ‘women’s.’”

Eddie feels his teeth grinding in his mouth for the second time that day, and he busies himself with taking his binder out of his backpack instead of turning around. Don’t engage. Just don’t engage.

“Awe, come on, princess; you can’t ignore me all semester. We’ve got two whole classes together! If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you did it on purpose.”

Eddie might have ignored it if it weren’t for the ‘princess’ comment, and at that, he finds himself spinning around in his chair. “Nope, just pure coincidence, since I decided to take the easiest classes that a monkey with half a fucking brain could do to reward myself for working so fucking hard. You know, to graduate? Go to college? All those things I’ll be doing while you’re still fucking here next year, and the year after that, still tricking underclassmen girls into sleeping with you since you can’t convince any girls your own age that a barely sentient pile of garbage is worth their time.”

He knows that turning around was a bad idea as soon as he sees the unfaltering smirk still plastered on Richie’s face, and his wave of confidence flees him to be replaced by that same heavy, unsettled feeling in his stomach that he gets whenever those piercing blue eyes are focused on him.

“You’re right, Kaspbrak. Wanna give me some tips? I know you’re slaying pussy left and right, aren’t you? So lay it on me, stud. Tell me how to get a girl wet between the legs, since I’m so clueless and you’re clearly the expert here,” Richie says loudly this time, loud enough that he’s capturing the attention of the other students waiting for class to start, and Eddie feels his cheeks go pink.

“Glad you think it’s so cool to be a womanizing douche bag. I’m sure your mother must be proud of the person you’ve become,” Eddie bites, and once again knows it was a mistake by the flash of genuine anger in Richie’s eyes before that cool, emotionless blue stare returns. He runs his tongue over his canines before responding, and Eddie swallows nervously as he follows the movement with his eyes.

“Speaking of mothers, is yours still a psychotic bitch? Sure hope so, the crazy ones are always best in the sack,” he winks, and Eddie knows he got to him because he defaulted to a mom joke, and he feels smug satisfaction nestle in his chest.

He doesn’t have a response, though, which is why he’s especially thankful when the teacher walks in the door, announcing the start of class. They stare each other down for another tense moment before their teacher clears her throat, capturing the class’s attention.

“Mr. Kaspbrak, Mr. Tozier, are we already having a problem? The semester just started,” she asks, already sounding exhausted, and the guilt over frustrating a teacher finally forces Eddie to concede in their stare down and turn around in his seat.

“No, Ms. Neal. Sorry,” Eddie says softly, and she gives him a small smile before her eyes turn slightly colder as they fall onto Richie behind him.

“No problem at all, Miss. I was just telling Eddie how _so_ excited I am to have class together this semester! It feels like a real treat,” Richie’s slimy, sticky voice croons from behind, and Eddie feels a horrible chill creep down his spine at the sound of it.

Eddie is incredibly thankful once class starts and he can forget the fact that Richie exists for a moment, but halfway through the period, he keeps hearing these weird, quiet whimpering sounds coming from the girl sitting next to Richie. Eddie figures Richie’s mood changed with the wind again and he decided to say something cruel to her, and he sort of wants to involve himself, but a part of him figures that she did this to herself. So he doesn’t.

But it keeps going on, and Eddie eventually glances behind him to find Richie’s eyes boring into him. And if that weren’t unsettling enough, the underclassmen girl has her head in her hand, staring down at her notebook with her hair covering her face. And then Eddie is sure that Richie did say something horribly mean to her, and probably made her cry, and he’s not surprised. Not really.

He turns back around and ignores Richie’s staring for a while longer, until he feels Richie start to kick the legs on the back of his chair with his heavy boots, sending Eddie’s seat sliding with each kick. Eddie heaves out a sigh and tries to ignore it until Richie stops, but then he just starts doing it harder.

“Kaspbrak!” he whispers, then does it again, delivering a particularly hard kick to the seat of Eddie’s chair. So Eddie whips his head around, glaring daggers at Richie’s stupid fucking smirking face.

“Yes, Richie, how can I fucking help you?” he snaps, and Richie’s amusement visibly swells.

“Just wanted to tell you your shoelace is untied, Twinkle Toes. Don’t want you falling over and busting up that pretty face,” he whispers slyly, and Eddie spends a childish moment refusing to look down, because he’s sure this is a dumb, elementary ‘made you look’ gag so Richie can make fun of him for being gullible and stupid.

But his curiosity gets the best of him and he glances down, and he sees that his shoelace really is untied. Which is even more suspicious, considering that he’s sure Richie would have loved to see him trip over his own feet while exiting the classroom, spilling himself all over the floor in the hallway and making a scene. It would be the perfect opportunity for Richie to say something cruel, like _Thought Mr. Big Shot Track Star would have a little more grace on his feet, Kaspbrak._

Which is why Eddie stares at his untied shoelace for longer than he should before throwing a suspicious glance back at Richie, who innocently shrugs his shoulders. Eddie still doesn’t buy it but bends over to tie his shoe anyway, and just as he does, the girl lets out a particularly loud whimper, and shifts her legs under the table.

And that naturally captures Eddie’s attention, so he glances back underneath their table as he’s tying his shoe, and he doesn’t really understand what he’s seeing, at first. So he does a double take, and realizes the second time around that Richie has one of his large hands under her skirt and between her legs, slowly moving his fingers inside of her panties.

And Eddie is absolutely shocked still by what he’s seeing, because he can’t fucking believe what the fuck he’s seeing. Richie speeds up his movements as Eddie stares at the scene in front of him, trying to decipher what the fuck he’s looking at, like his brain refuses to process it as a reality. But then it does, all at once, and Eddie feels white hot embarrassment flood through him, and he lets out a yelp before abandoning his half-tied shoe to shoot back up in his chair. He faces forward and tries to cover his blush, but he’s sure Richie can still see it from behind, because he can certainly feel it burning at the tips of his ears.

And it only gets worse when he hears that distinct, rumbling chuckle from behind him. Feels it nestle under his skin like scabies, causing him to itch all over. He resists the urge to scratch at his skin, but it gets harder when he hears the girl let out another little whimper, and Eddie wants to tell her to run away, run the fuck away. Which is exactly what Eddie does as soon as the bell rings, nearly falling over his untied shoelace in his haste to get out of the door.

He spends his free period sitting in the student lounge and trying not to fucking break his teeth under the pressure of his clenched jaw. He wishes he had some homework or something to do already, but his feather-light course load hasn’t left him with any. He figures he should be grateful for that, but he isn’t right now, when all he can do is stare blankly down at the book open in front of him, thinking about the way Richie was staring at him while he fingered that girl.

He could switch out of all three classes and just take something else. He could, if he wanted to. But he’s just so fucking burnt out from working so hard these past few years, and he doesn’t want to take calculus or advanced bio or any of the other classes that still have open seats during those time slots. And besides, if he switches out of those classes, he’s letting Richie win. Because he knows that’s what Richie wants. He wants Eddie to run away.

Just one more class, and then he can go home. As comforting of a thought as that is, he still finds himself nearly dragging his feet into his calligraphy class, and he dumps himself unceremoniously into one of the seats near the back of the room. He rests his head on his forearms and closes his eyes for a moment, trying to will away the stress headache that’s been poking at the back of his eyes since this morning.

And honestly, he doesn’t know why he doesn’t expect it, at this point. You’d think he’d be used to life just absolutely pummeling him at every turn. And yet, he still finds it in him to be surprised when he hears heavy footsteps approaching him before a weight drops into the empty seat next to his, so close that their legs are touching.

He takes a deep, shaky breath to try to take himself back down from his impending breakdown, praying that he’s wrong, and it won’t actually be Richie sitting there when he opens his eyes. But, once again, life is cruel and unfair, so that’s exactly who he sees once he blinks his eyes open. Fucking Richie, sitting there with his chin in his palm, grinning at Eddie like he hasn’t had this much fun in years.

“No, no. No, no, no,” Eddie begs softly, and he’s not even sure who he’s begging to. The sound of it has Richie laughing, leaning in even closer.

“Three whole classes together, huh? Really brings you back, doesn’t it? It feels like I won the fucking lottery,” Richie nearly whispers into his ear, before pulling back to look Eddie up and down, making him feel cold all over.

“Richie, can we please just- just not? Can we just try and get through this semester without any fuss? I mean, for fucks sake. I’ll be gone in a few months and out of your hair forever. You can’t just give me a fucking break for one god damn semester?” Eddie tries to say firmly, but it comes out begging and broken, and Richie’s eyes gleam.

“Who said I want you out of my hair, princess? You’re my favorite toy to play with, I’m gonna miss you when you’re gone,” Richie tells him, and Eddie knows it’s meant to be a cruel joke, but the way Richie’s eyes are alight when he says it has Eddie shifting uncomfortably in his seat.

“I don’t want any trouble, Richie.”

“Didn’t seem that way when you were mouthing off to me in class earlier,” Richie says lowly, nearly growling, and Eddie feels his exhaustion-driven peacekeeper attitude vanish from his body.

“’Mouthing off’? What are you, my fucking parent? And besides, you started it! I didn’t even fucking say anything to you until you started being a fucking asshole to me to impress your little girlfriend so you could finger bang her in class,” Eddie bites, and Richie leans in closer, so close that Eddie can feel his breath ghosting over his face, and smell the cigarette smoke clinging to his clothes.

“Did you like the show, baby? Want a sniff?” he chuckles, bringing his first two fingers on his left hand up, like he’s going to shove them in Eddie’s face. Eddie shrieks and smacks his arm away, sending Richie into another laughing fit.

“No, I was very much not a fan, actually!”

“Figured. I didn’t think you would be. You know, considering,” Richie says pointedly, and Eddie narrows his eyes.

“Considering what?”

Richie leans in right up to his ear, and Eddie has to force his body to stay still. Because flinching means that Richie will know that he’s succeeding in making Eddie uncomfortable, which means that he wins.

“Considering you don’t like girls, Eddie,” Richie whispers into his ear, bringing those same two fingers down to run the length of Eddie’s forearm where it’s resting on the table.

Eddie is frozen still for a moment before shoving Richie’s hand away and scoffing. “Don’t fucking touch me. I’m surprised you still remember my fucking first name. Thought you’d forgotten after all this time calling me ‘Kaspbrak’ and ‘Twinkle Toes’ and ‘princess.’”

“I remember everything about you,” Richie whispers so quietly that it’s barely audible, and Eddie wishes he would back up and stop leaning in so close to Eddie’s face, because it has him so on edge that his muscles hurt from tensing. Richie looks him over carefully before pulling away, but he doesn’t get up and move seats.

Not that Eddie really expects him to. Why would he, when he has Eddie trapped next to him for a fucking hour to torture him however he wants?

Shockingly, Richie doesn’t say anything else to him before class starts, and Eddie feels almost grateful towards him before he remembers not to be. He does stare at him, though. Like he always does. In the hallways between classes, Eddie always feels cold under his skin, and that’s how he knows Richie has those dark eyes trained on him, watching his every move.

Once class starts, he finds himself regretting taking it for a whole different reason. He figured calligraphy would be easy, since he’s always had neat handwriting. Well, maybe not easy, but doable. But he slowly realizes that this is just a straight up art class, and he hasn’t taken one since his freshman year. Not since he was in Art I with Richie, when they spent more time fucking around than actually working. It was the only time that he’s ever received a C in deportment.

Truthfully, he’s avoided taking art classes because that’s most of what Richie takes. As much as Eddie really hates admitting that Richie has any good qualities, he is a talented artist. Eddie very much is not, and that was all the more motivation to fill his arts and culture credits with piano classes these past few years. He really likes playing piano, despite his piano teacher telling him that he would likely have a hard time doing so, with how small his hands are. But he didn’t let it deter him, just like when Coach Tanner told him he likely wouldn’t place for the track team when he first tried out because of his height. And now he’s got a full ride athletic scholarship to NYU next fall. So they can both suck it.

Their teacher has them practice writing their names with these fancy calligraphy pens, the type that you have to dip into ink. Eddie is embarrassed by how much trouble he’s having getting anything presentable down. He can barely manage to get lines drawn without leaving puddles of ink or scratching holes into the paper. He tries to block his work with his arm so that Richie won’t see it and make fun of him, but that must make it more conspicuous, because he eventually feels Richie grab his wrist and pull his arm out of the way so he can look down at his work.

He snorts out a laugh and Eddie snatches his arm out of Richie’s hold, glaring daggers at him.

“You do know how to _write_ , right? I mean, jeez, Eds. That’s atrocious.”

“Don’t fucking call me that.”

“Thought you would be good at this, considering that girly handwriting of yours.”

“I don’t know how to use a fucking calligraphy pen,” Eddie snaps defensively, and he’s not even sure why he’s responding. It’s only a matter of time before Richie says something cruel.

“Yeah, that’s obvious by the way you’re holding it the totally wrong way,” Richie comments, reaching over to pluck the pen from Eddie’s fingers. Eddie is absolutely sure that Richie is going to throw it across the room, or refuse to give it back, or something. Instead, he leans over (very much crowding into Eddie’s personal space) and dips it into his inkwell, and proceeds to write _Edward Francis Kaspbrak_ in perfectly neat, pretty cursive, which is in direct contrast to his usual chicken scratch.

Eddie just stares down at his paper and then back at Richie, who presses the pen back into Eddie’s fingers almost gently.

“If you hold it so that the well is facing the paper, you’re gonna get puddles like that. Also don’t press down so hard; you should use light pressure until you know what you’re doing. And hold your fingers closer to the bottom, it’s harder to control how much force you’re using if your grip is halfway up the pen.”

Eddie just stares at him, waiting for the punchline. Waiting for the meanness to come, or for Richie to steal the pen back and write ‘pretty boy’ or ‘princess’ underneath his name. But he doesn’t. He just goes back to his own work, and Eddie is shocked still for a moment before tentatively dipping his pen back into his ink and trying again.

He follows Richie’s advice and actually manages to write something legible, and he smiles softly to himself before glancing over at Richie, who still isn’t looking at him. He bites his lip in thought before deciding it’s only polite to say thank you, since Richie was nice. And if they can manage to have a civil, even _decorous_ rapport with each other in this class, that would make Eddie’s entire semester much, much easier.

“Hey, um…” Eddie begins, and Richie glances up at him, and Eddie’s nerve almost leaves him. Almost. But Richie is looking at him without those glaring eyes, or that smirk on his face, and Eddie manages not to grit his teeth on his next words. “Thanks, Richie.”

“Don’t mention it.”

Eddie is shocked into paralysis once more but decides not to question it, and turns back to his paper to keep practicing. He’s just finished his first name when he feels Richie lean in closer, and Eddie goes still.

“Looks good; you’re a fast learner. You’ve always been good at following directions, sweetheart. I’ll think of a way for you to repay me for my kindness later,” Richie says lowly before blowing into Eddie’s ear, and Eddie’s grip on his pen tightens until his fingers ache.

When their teacher comes around to check on their work, he stops in front of Eddie to praise him for his progress.

“Much better, Eddie! You’re getting the hang of this,” he says, which Eddie thanks him for, but the smug smile that Richie has on once he walks away makes Eddie want to scream.

“You just need someone to tell you what to do, don’t you, princess?”

He manages to make it through the rest of class without stabbing Richie in the fucking eye with his fountain pen, and he nearly leaps out of his seat once the bell rings.

He’s managed to make it through a whole day without anything too catastrophic happening, and honestly, that’s better than he thought he’d do, given the circumstances. Now just 80 or so more days of this. Lovely.

He rushes to the locker room after class to change into his clothes for track, and as he’s heading back to his locker to deposit his backpack before practice, he sees Richie standing in the hallway. Well, there are still other students in the hallway, too, but his eyes immediately hone in on Richie, leaning against a locker that’s suspiciously close to his own.

He considers just taking his backpack to practice and leaving it on the bleachers next to the track, but it’s supposed to rain at some point today, and he doesn’t want to risk it. Besides, there’s a chance that Richie isn’t even there for him. Maybe he’s waiting for some girl. Maybe that girl that he had his fingers inside of while he stared at Eddie with those dark, unsettling eyes.

He decides to ignore him altogether and walks casually up to his locker at the end of the hall, hoping that if Richie isn’t there for him, he’ll have enough mercy to ignore Eddie and let him get on with his day.

Life isn’t that kind.

Just as he finishes shoving his backpack into his locker and spinning the dial lock, he feels a bruising grip encircle his bicep, and all of the hair on his body stands on end.

He swallows down his initial fear to throw a glare up at Richie, who’s staring down at him with an indecipherable, albeit intense, expression on his face. Eddie forces himself not to wilt under the pressure of it.

“You could use your words, you know. You don’t have to fucking manhandle me like a brutish oaf,” Eddie snaps, though there isn’t really anything oafish about Richie. He’s alarmingly graceful now that he’s a grown man, and Eddie is often unsettled by how calculated and deliberate his movements are.

He’s definitely brutish, though, in his heavy gait and the way he throws his height and broad shoulders around to intimidate. And, of course, the grip he currently has on Eddie’s arm.

“But isn’t it more fun for us both when I do?” Richie smirks, and Eddie doesn’t even know what the fuck that’s supposed to mean, but he feels himself blushing anyway.

“What do you want, Richie? I have practice.”

“Wanted to talk to you.”

“About?”

“About how this semester is going to go.”

Eddie rolls his eyes, fighting back the urge to try to tear his arm from Richie’s grip. He knows it would be pointless. But Richie might be able to read his mind, because his grip tightens anyway, and Eddie is sure now that it’s going to leave a bruise.

Richie looks him carefully up and down before speaking again, and Eddie shies away from it, suddenly feeling self-conscious in his running shorts.

“I’d like to enjoy my time at school, wouldn’t you?” he asks, and Eddie knows it’s a loaded question, so he nods instead of verbally responding and giving Richie material to build off of.

“So perhaps we should try to patch things up, Eddie. Be friends again. You know, like we used to be,” Richie smiles disingenuously, and Eddie bares his teeth, feeling his blood go hot in his veins.

“I have no interest in being friends with you, Richie, and you fucking know that. What about the past two years of you fucking torturing and humiliating me at school has made you think I would ever fucking want anything to do with you ever again? Not to mention the fact that you broke all the fucking fingers on Bill’s hand, don’t think I’ve forgotten about that,” Eddie bites, and Richie laughs, his eyes already dancing with that malicious glee that Eddie has learned to associate with danger and upset and unease.

“Still upset about that, are we?”

“Of course I fucking am. He was in physical therapy for months. You’re lucky his parents didn’t fucking press charges like they should have. You’re a fucking monster.”

Eddie gasps in surprise as Richie pushes him back against his locker, leaning in close to his ear; so close that Eddie’s chest breaks out in goosebumps at the sensation of his hot breath against his neck.

“He shouldn’t have put his fucking hands on what’s mine.”

Eddie doesn’t know what the fuck that means, and he tries to figure it out on his own instead of asking, because he knows Richie wants him to ask. He wants Eddie to ask what he means, so he can say something else to make him more uncomfortable, or angrier, or something worse. But he has no idea what the fuck he’s talking about.

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

Richie just breathes into his ear before bringing his other hand up to Eddie’s face, running his fingers along Eddie’s jaw and down his neck in a way that has his heart pounding in his ears.

“You’ve gotten really pretty, Eddie. All grown up. Well, as grown as you’re gonna get, I guess,” Richie teases in a whisper, and Eddie brings his hands up to press against his chest. It’s useless, because Richie doesn’t budge, but Eddie can’t stand the sensation of Richie being pressed up against him anymore.

“Fuck off, Richie.”

“Stanley was lucky he didn’t get what was coming to him, too.”

“Stan never fucking did anything to you.”

“He acted like he was your little fucking protector, like he thought I would come for you next. Didn’t have the balls to confront me like Denbrough, so he’d just rush in to coddle you like a momma bear with her cub. He always sort of did that, didn’t he? I think the reason he was always so quick to baby you was because he was jealous that you let me touch you in places that he never got to. I think both of them were jealous.”

Eddie’s blood goes cold at Richie’s words and he starts panicking, pressing harder against Richie’s chest, which is still more-or-less useless.

“Richie, please get off of me.”

“I missed hearing you beg, sweetheart.”

“Why are you doing this? Why are you doing this to me?” Eddie asks desperately, and he hates that he can hear the tears brimming in his own voice. Hates that he feels them stinging behind his eyes.

“Because I’ve missed you.”

“That doesn’t give you the right to treat me like this.”

“You’ve always let me do whatever I want to you, Eddie. Ever since we were little. Even more so, after that summer. You would have done whatever I told you to. Like you wanted to be my obedient little pet.”

Eddie startles at Richie’s words, looking up at him in shock.

“Richie, we were- we were _kids.”_

“Were we still kids? Because I felt pretty fucking grown up already, at that point. Murdering an old world demon tends to age you pretty quick.”

“Don’t, Richie. Don’t,” Eddie warns, tensing his arm in Richie’s grip. Richie lets out another chuckle, his eyes glimmering in amusement as Eddie’s fill with panicked tears.

“Are you guys still on about that? Acting like talking about it is gonna break you apart from the inside? Well, Eddie, I hate to be the one to tell you this, but you’re already broken.”

“Shut the fuck up, Richie, I mean it,” Eddie tries to say firmly, but his voice is wavering, and he feels the urge to say ‘please’ again. _Please stop it, Richie._

“I think you were broken even before everything happened. That’s why I spent all summer trying to make you feel better, you know. I knew you weren’t strong enough to handle what was happening. I knew you needed somebody to take care of you,” Richie recalls, looking almost fondly down at Eddie before brushing a lock of hair behind his ear, and Eddie feels like he’s burning where Richie’s fingers ghost across his skin.

“How fucking valiant of you, Sir Richard; truly my fucking knight in shining armor.”

“I mean, don’t you agree that I deserved a reward for spending all my fucking time and energy making sure _you_ were okay? That _you_ weren’t falling apart at the seams? Since you’re so incapable of doing that yourself. Always have been.”

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean? What kind of fucking reward were you expecting, Richie? I figured the reward to all of us for going through that was coming out with our fucking _lives_ ,” Eddie seethes, and Richie brings his thumb to Eddie’s lips, and Eddie is frozen in place as Richie gently rubs against them before pulling down on his bottom lip, admiring the plump, pink wetness there.

“You know, I used to go down to the clubhouse when all of you were gone and lie in the hammock. I'd beat off and think about what these pouty little lips would feel like sucking my dick. Imagined what you'd sound like with my cock down your throat, instead of running your fucking mouth at me nonstop,” Richie tells him softly, and Eddie sucks in a shaky breath, feeling his whole body break out in goosebumps as his muscles try to go limp under his skin.

“Wondered what you would do if I snuck my fingers under those skimpy little shorts. If you'd just lie there and let me do it,” Richie goes on, bringing the hand that’s been gripping Eddie’s arm down to the hem of his shorts, just barely dipping his fingers underneath. Eddie is frozen in… in terror, he thinks, and his breaths come out shaky and unsteady as Richie rubs his thumb over the soft skin of his thigh.

“I know you would have. You always liked to pretend you didn't feel anything for me back, but when the others weren't around, I never heard you complaining about holding my hand. Never complained when I was climbing through your window at night to hold you while you slept. Never complained about me touching you in places your mother wouldn't approve of while you climbed all over me in that fucking hammock. Did you think I never noticed you getting hard, too? It would be impossible not to,” Richie whispers, tugging gently on Eddie’s shorts, as if to prove a point.

“So-So what, then? You thought you deserved a fucking blowjob as repayment for being a good fucking friend to me?” Eddie tries to snap, but something in him feels like it’s breaking, and he can’t stop a few tears from rolling down his cheeks. Richie reaches up to wipe them away with his thumb, and Eddie wants to smack his fucking hand away. He doesn’t.

“I thought I deserved a blowjob because you were clearly so in love with me, I just hoped the trauma bonding would finally make you open up that pretty mouth for me,” Richie replies coolly, and Eddie’s breath catches in his throat.

“I was not in love with you.”

Richie chuckles again, narrowing his eyes at Eddie in a mock show of consideration. “Weren’t you? I mean, you sure had me fooled then, with the way you spent your whole fucking life glued to my side. The way you ran to me for comfort every time you were scared. Not to mention all the cuddling, and the hand holding, and the kissing.”

 _“You_ kissed _me_.”

“You let me do it.”

Eddie sniffles, trying to hold in a sob. “So what, then? What are you trying to say? Because by your own fucking logic, you’re saying you were just as fucking in love with me as I was with you.”

“Yes, Eddie, that’s exactly what I’m saying,” Richie tells him almost tenderly, and he’s staring at Eddie’s lips again, and Eddie can’t fucking handle this right now.

“Get the fuck away from me. Stop it.”

“You don’t really mean that, sweetheart. You never did.”

“Stop. You got what you wanted, didn’t you? I’m backing down, I’m fucking upset. You fucking win, again. So just stop now. Stop fucking with me,” Eddie begs softly, and Richie lets out another rumbling chuckle.

“I haven’t gotten what I want yet, actually,” he whispers lowly into Eddie’s ear, bringing his hand back down to Eddie’s shorts, this time sliding his hand up to grip the top of his thigh. “I want you.”

“Well you can’t fucking have me, I’m not yours to fucking take.”

“Yes you are. You’ve always been mine,” Richie growls into Eddie’s ear, sliding his hand toward his inner thigh, and Eddie’s breath picks up double time.

“Don’t fucking touch me,” Eddie tries to bite, but it sounds like he’s begging, pushing weakly on Richie’s wrist and knowing that it won’t make a difference.

“You used to love it when I touched you.”

“That was before I fucking knew any better,” Eddie admits in a whisper, desperately trying to catch his breath.

“I still don’t think you know any better,” Richie laughs, and the sound of it hurts in Eddie’s ears. “You know I see you watching me all the time, right? I see you look for me in the hallways. I see you glance away when you realize I’ve noticed you staring at me.”

“You’re one to fucking talk, all you do is bother me all the fucking time. You’re fucking obsessed with me,” Eddie finally finds the energy to snap at him, and Richie laughs, pulling away from him all at once to take a step back.

Eddie finally feels like he can breathe, and he falls back against his locker as he rubs at the skin of his arm where Richie had grabbed, resisting the urge to rub at his thigh as well.

“Sure am, glad you finally noticed,” Richie winks, and Eddie grits his teeth, clenching his fists at his sides.

“Just fucking leave me alone.”

Richie tut-tuts, mock-pouting down at him. “You don’t mean that, baby. I know you don’t like being alone.”

Eddie isn’t sure why that’s what makes him finally break, but it does, and before he knows it, he’s throwing a fist at Richie’s face. And it’s weird, because he doesn’t even remember wanting to punch him, but next thing he knows his fist is colliding with Richie’s mouth.

Richie makes a noise that sounds more surprised than pained, and he’s laughing when he looks back down at Eddie, grinning with his blood in his teeth.

“Pack quite a wallop in those little fists now, huh?” he praises in his own weird fucking way, before bringing his hand down to grab suggestively at his crotch through his jeans. “Come on, baby, give me one more; I’m so close.”

And Eddie knows he shouldn’t, especially now that the other students in the hallway who didn’t seem to notice Richie groping him have now had their attention attracted by the promise of a fight. He knows this is going to turn into a fucking train wreck if he throws another punch, but he does it anyway. He rears back and punches him again, in the nose this time, and nausea rushes through him at the sickening crack of Richie’s cartilage against his fist.

Other students are already scrambling to find teachers, and Eddie can’t really hear their hushed chatter over the ringing in his ears, or feel their eyes staring at him over the heat of his blood in his veins. He wants to punch him again, he wants to fucking drag him to the ground and fucking turn his face into mush, especially because he’s still fucking smirking. Smirking and licking the blood off of his lips as it drips from his nostrils.

“That’s it, baby; just like that.”

The sophomore history teacher is the first one to run into the hallway. Eddie can hear him saying something, but it just sounds like garbled noise. Eddie is surprised when he runs to Richie to restrain him, like Richie was the one who was throwing punches. Richie isn’t even posturing at him, in fact. He’s just standing there, and doesn’t even struggle when Mr. Barker pulls his arms behind his back. He’s just staring at Eddie with that gleeful look in his eyes, and Eddie only realizes that Principal Walsh is behind him and trying to get his attention when she places a gentle hand on his shoulder, and he turns to see her concerned eyes searching his face.

The adrenaline starts to wear off and his hand fucking hurts now, and he glances down to see his knuckles covered in blood. He assumes it’s not his, at first, until he flexes his hand and his own blood oozes out of the cuts that Richie’s teeth left on his knuckles, mixing with Richie’s blood where it’s already begun to dry on his skin.

“Eddie, come with me, _now_ ,” she says softly, grabbing him by the bicep to start pulling him down the hallway. He trips over his own feet for a moment before he starts moving, glancing behind him to see Mr. Barker dragging Richie down the opposite end of the hall with his arms still locked behind his back. And Richie is still staring at him, still _smirking_ at him when their eyes meet, and Eddie doesn’t look away until Mrs. Walsh pulls him into the main office.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm highkey so nervous to post this because I'm afraid people are going to get upset but I feel that I was VERY CLEAR that Richie is an asshole in this fic so honestly i'm sending it. Also I'm going to see sonic later and I'm not sure what to expect from that but it's a thing that's happening


	4. The Ruiner

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Maybe there will come a day  
> When those that you keep blind will suddenly realize  
> Maybe it's a part of me you took  
> To a place I hoped it would never go  
> And maybe that fucked me up  
> Much more than you'll ever know
> 
> How'd you get so big?  
> How'd you get so strong?  
> How'd it get so hard?  
> How'd it get so long?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [ Come sin with me on Tumblr ](https://bimmyshrug.tumblr.com/)
> 
> ['Osculum Obscenum' playlist](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5lEdq6H9GE0hvXRLOKNMy1?si=8sBkPtTQSDeFOYURZmonWw)
> 
> Back with another update for your faces! Thank you everyone so much for your support regarding this fic, and my other fics, and my shameless sinning on my Tumblr. Like, I love you all so much. Glad we've carved out a little depraved pocket of the fandom to thrive in, bless. 
> 
> I'm still working on answering all the Tumblr requests/asks I've received, and chap 7 of ETBH is well on it's way!! It is taking me a bit longer to write since I didn't have a solid place to stay these past two weeks, so please bear with me. But I am no longer couch surfing, so finding the time to write will be much easier!!
> 
> Upon request, there will be a playlist made for this fic as well, so if you have any song suggestions, feel free to drop them in my Tumblr inbox or comment them below :) 
> 
> Just thank you all so much, my heart has been so full these past few days. And for those of you who want to keep up with me/ read more from me/ send me prompt requests, Tumblr is the best way to do that! I am really terrible at checking my email, and I'm slightly better at checking comments on here, but Tumblr is where I live most of the time. 
> 
> There are some important shout-outs and acknowledgements of requests that I filled in this chapter that will be in the end chapter notes!!
> 
> /////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////  
> WARNING: TW/CW CONTAIN SPOILERS FOR THE CHAPTER: sexual harrassment, exhibitionism, oral sex (bj), panic attack, internalized homophobia, coarse language, emotional manipulation, blood, spit, mentions of physical violence, verbal arguments, just. Richie as a whole in this story is a warning, y'all. Like I'm js.  
> //////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

The devil’s got a handsome face. That’s something he’s heard his mother say about a thousand times throughout his life. _Don’t be fooled, Eddie-bear. The devil’s got a handsome face._

He just wishes she had told him that he knew the devil, very fucking well. Grew up with the devil. Shared ice creams with the devil. Kissed and held hands and shared a bed with the devil.

And he’s sitting next to the fucking devil right now, while he’s pulling on a horrible show of a wool mask over his fucking canines, and Eddie wants to fucking scream.

“Well, Eddie, I’m just… I’m downright shocked. I never thought I’d see the day that you’d be in my office for _fighting,”_ Principal Walsh tells him, and all Eddie can focus on is the fucking smirk on Richie’s face that he can see out of the corner of his eye.

“I- I know, Mrs. Walsh, I didn’t either. But I promise, I _promise_ it will never happen again.”

“You hit another student, Eddie. Other students saw you do it; they said you punched Richard two times. Unprovoked.”

“It was _not_ unprovoked!” Eddie nearly shrieks, and Principal Walsh raises an unimpressed eyebrow at him, while Richie fails to hold in a chuckle from his right side.

“Then please, explain to me what pushed you to physical violence, Edward. Because when I was first called to respond to this situation, I assumed it was going to be Richard throwing punches. I wouldn’t expect this sort of behavior from you,” she says stiffly, then turns to Richie and adds a quiet, “No offense.”

“None taken, ma’am.”

“He was- He was _harassing me,_ like he always does, like he’s done since sophomore year,” Eddie argues, and he sort of wants to punch the principal, too, for the feigned surprise that she manages to pull onto her face.

“This is the first you’ve told me about this.”

And Eddie notes how significantly different that is from _This is my first time hearing of this,_ or _This is the first time I’ve been made aware of this,_ because everyone already knows he and Richie hate each other. Everyone, all of the teachers, the faculty, everybody knows how much of an asshole Richie is to him on a daily basis. And it doesn’t matter. It never has, so what would be the point in telling the principal? So he can get made fun of for being a tattler?

“Well, _ma’am_ , I figured it was obvious at this point,” Eddie grits out through his teeth, trying very, very hard not to freak the fuck out.

“I can’t help you to fix a problem if you don’t tell me about it, Eddie. And now you’ve decided to take matters into your own hands, and you’ve left me with very few options that don’t end in a suspension for you,” she says in that calm, condescending way she speaks, and Eddie feels his blood go to ice in his veins.

“S-Suspended? You’re- You’re going to suspend me?” he asks quietly, and he fucking hates himself for the tears that start welling up in his eyes. But he hates Richie even more for the amused smirk that he still has pulled across his fucking face.

“I don’t want to have to do that, Eddie.”

“I- What else can I do?”

“Well, let’s start by you telling me what happened from your perspective, and then we’ll give Richard a chance to tell his side of the story, and I’ll choose a fit punishment after that.”

Well, that’s not any fucking better. What the fuck is he supposed to say? _You see, ma’am, we used to be really close as kids, and then we started cuddling with each other and kissing sometimes, and then after we murdered an alien clown one summer, everything just sort of fell apart. And now Richie likes to sexually harass me at school because he’s turned into a fucking sociopath!_

“Well… Well, I was going to put my backpack into my locker before track practice,” Eddie starts, then he’s punched in the guts by another wave of panic, because he’s fucking missing track practice for this. Great. “And, um… I saw Richie waiting for me at my locker. And I tried to ignore him, because- because he never has anything kind to say to me. And as I was trying to walk away, he grabbed me on the arm, and he just- he started- you know, he started doing what he always does.”

“What’s that?”

“Saying things to make me mad on purpose.”

“Such as?”

Eddie hesitates, biting his lip before giving in and glancing at Richie out of the corner of his eye. Richie looks downright bored now, carelessly picking at his cuticles in his lap. That almost pisses Eddie off more than the smirking.

“Just… calling me names, making fun of me for the way I dress, that sort of thing,” Eddie under-explains, and she cocks her head at him.

“And you’re saying he does this a lot?” she asks with a mock-concerned furrow in her brow, like she doesn’t already fucking know.

“Every day, ma’am.”

“So what made you hit him today?”

“I just… I…” Eddie pauses, cutting eyes at Richie again, nearly infuriated that he hasn’t looked over in Eddie’s direction even once since they’ve been sitting here. “I guess I just finally had enough.”

“I see. Richard, do you agree with Eddie’s account of the events that transpired?”

Richie readjusts before answering, spreading his legs wider as he slinks back into his chair, taking up even more space than he already fucking does, with his long ass fucking legs. Because he’s fucking annoying, and obnoxious, and all he does is fill the fucking space around him with it.

“Not at all, ma’am,” Richie starts, and Eddie already wants to say ‘fuck it’ to jump across the small gap between them and strangle Richie where he sits. “I was really surprised today, because Eddie and I are in 3 classes together this semester. We haven’t had class together in a really long time, and it got me thinking. See, ma’am, Eddie and I used to be really close. We were best friends when we were kids. We used to be inseparable,” Richie goes on, and Eddie can barely stop himself from digging his nails into the wooden arm rests that he’s currently got a death grip on.

“Is that so?” Mrs. Walsh asks curiously, and Eddie can’t help rolling his eyes. This is fucking bullshit.

“Yes, ma’am. And so I decided to try to talk to Eddie after class, because I wanted to try patching things up in the hopes that we can have a pleasant semester together. I admit that I may have been a bit aggressive in my approach, because Eddie was reluctant to speak to me, which I don’t blame him for. I haven’t been very nice to him for the past few years, he’s right about that. But I truthfully just wanted to have a conversation with him and try to apologize for my behavior these past few years, and ask him if we could try to be civil with one another for the rest of the semester.”

“This is fucking bullshit,” Eddie hisses under his breath before thinking, and the principal lets out a scandalized gasp.

“Edward!”

“Sorry! I’m sorry, ma’am. I just mean- this is all a lie. None of that is true!”

“Let him finish speaking, Eddie.”

Eddie rolls his eyes before sinking miserably back down into his chair, crossing his arms petulantly over his chest.

“I guess I must have said something to make him angry. Maybe it made him upset to hear how much I’ve missed being friends all of these years-”

Eddie cuts him off with a scoff, but closes his mouth after receiving a warning glare from Mrs. Walsh.

“I just- I guess I didn’t go about it the right way, or something. Maybe I was too pushy, or… I don’t know, I’m not sure exactly what I said that made him so mad. But the next thing I knew, he punched me in the face,” Richie finishes with a sigh, and he turns to look at Eddie with what, to Eddie, is a horribly feigned expression of solemnity, but apparently, Mrs. Walsh buys it.

“Well, it sounds to me like perhaps this was all just a big miscommunication,” Mrs. Walsh announces, and Eddie figures she could have reached a worse verdict. Could have reached a truer one, as well, but whatever.

“That being said, you did commit violence against another student, Eddie. School policy dictates that you be suspended for a minimum of three days and removed from any extra-curricular activities, as I’m sure you know,” she tells him with a knowing expression, and Eddie feels his stomach sink into his running shoes.

“Wait- Wait. Ma’am, please. You can’t- You can’t kick me off of track,” Eddie begs desperately, and she sighs, leaning back slightly in her chair.

“You’ve really put me in a spot, Eddie. I might have no choice.”

“But my- my scholarship. I’ll lose my scholarship, please,” he’s so close to crying again, and he fucking hates it, and he wants to throw Richie out of the fucking window next to them so that most of the fucking problems in his life can finally be solved. “I’ll- I’ll do anything, please. Please, Mrs. Walsh,” he begs, and she considers him carefully for a moment before flicking her gaze over to Richie, who is just sitting there, cool as a cucumber with his hands folded in his lap.

“Perhaps we can make a deal.”

Eddie already hates the sound of that, but he starts nodding anyway. He really can’t afford to lose this scholarship. The rest of his life is riding on it.

“Richard, you know you’re at risk of not graduating, yes?” she asks him, which is a fucking understatement. Everyone knows Richie isn’t going to graduate on time.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“So why don’t I help you help each other, hmm? Eddie, if you can help Richie get his grades up for this semester, you can stay on the track team, and I won’t suspend you for starting a fight on school property. And Richie, if you manage to get at least a B average in your classes this semester, we can work something out that might just allow you to walk with the rest of your classmates at graduation in June. How does that sound to you boys?” she asks them with a smile, and Eddie feels his entire world crashing down around him.

“I am _not_ tutoring him,” Eddie says immediately, and a deep frown settles onto her face.

“Well, Edward, that’s your choice. It’s this, or it’s calling home to tell your mother that you’re suspended and kicked from track,” she shrugs, but it sounds like a threat, and Eddie wants to reach over her desk and strangle her, too. Fucking bitch.

“You’re- You’d have to call my mom?” he hates himself for being so upset about that part, but he can’t help it, and he definitely notices the small snort that comes from Richie next to him. He resists the urge to kick a foot out at his shin, but just barely.

“Yes, Eddie. I think she’d want an explanation for why you’re being stripped of your scholarship, don’t you?”

Eddie has never felt this trapped before in his life, which is saying a-fucking-lot. But he feels nearly suffocated, like there’s a weight sitting right on his chest as something tries to shove fucking cotton down his throat.

“But ma’am-”

“Richard,” she interrupts him, and Eddie snaps his mouth shut. “How do you feel about this arrangement? Is this agreeable to you?”

“Yes, ma’am. Eddie’s got the best grades in our class, behind Stanley. I’d be lucky to have him tutor me,” Richie says with terribly executed mock-sincerity, but Mrs. Walsh still eats it right up.

“You don’t even fucking need tutoring,” Eddie snaps, and Mrs. Walsh puts a fist down on her desk.

“Edward, if you continue to cuss in my office, I might just rescind my generous offer altogether.”

“Sorry, I’m sorry.”

“I want to be able to graduate with my peers, ma’am. Thank you for giving me this opportunity, you have no idea how thankful I am,” Richie tells her with that slimy, unsettling grin on his face that Eddie is starting to become convinced only he can see.

“I never said yes,” Eddie snaps again, and Mrs. Walsh sighs before turning to him once more.

“So is that your choice, Eddie? You want to be suspended, kicked from track, lose your scholarship? Explain all of this to your mother? That’s the decision you’re making, rather than helping an old friend with his grades?”

The strangling feeling around his throat just gets worse, and he’s really wishing that stupid fucking alien clown could have sprinkled a little fairy dust on this godforsaken town that allows people to travel back an hour in the past, so that he could have just avoided this entirely by taking his fucking backpack outside onto the track like he should have.

“Fine. Yeah, I’ll- I’ll tutor him.”

A wide grin pulls across her lips that has Eddie feeling sick to his stomach, and he wants to fucking kick and scream and throw a fucking temper tantrum.

“Lovely. So why don’t the two of you discuss your schedules and when the best time is for you to meet up while I run to go grab some blank calendars for you?”

“Sure thing, ma’am,” Richie smiles widely at her, and her grin only brightens, and Eddie wants to spit on her.

“Great. I’ll be right back, please behave while I’m gone,” she tells them before standing from her desk to exit the room, allowing the door to click shut behind her.

“Are you fucking happy? Is this what you wanted? To ruin my fucking life, finally? Are you finally fucking satisfied? You fucking won! Congratulations!” Eddie snaps as soon as the door closes, and Richie is looking at him with such an amused smile on his face that Eddie has to physically stop himself from punching his bloodied lip all over again.

“This went better than I could have imagined, honestly. I figured she was just going to make us serve detention together for a few weeks or something,” he laughs, and Eddie slams his fist down onto the desk, rattling the pens in the principal’s pen cup.

“You fucking _planned_ this, you sociopath?!”

“Not quite like this.”

Eddie is already getting dangerously worked up again.

“We both know you’re not a fucking idiot, Richie. You don’t need a fucking tutor. You just don’t fucking give a shit. In fact, you’re alarmingly methodical. Did you know most serial killers have a genius level IQ? Wonder if there’s a fucking correlation there?”

“Probably.”

“Why are you fucking doing this to me? Why can’t you just fuck off for six more fucking months? Why are you trying to ruin my fucking life right before I’m about to finally get out of this fucking town?”

“Because I don’t want you to leave,” Richie says bluntly, and Eddie’s mouth snaps shut in shock. “Besides, if anything, I’m doing you a favor. I know you look for any possible excuse to interact with me, so this should make it easy for you.”

“What the fuck are you smoking? Have you literally lost your mind? I fucking hate you.”

“No, you don’t. If you did, you would have moved when I sat next to you in calligraphy, or just taken your backpack with you to practice when you saw me at your locker. Hell, you could have switched out of our shared classes. But we both know you weren’t going to do that, were you, princess?”

“You don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about,” Eddie tries to bite, but it doesn’t pack quite the amount of heat he’s aiming for, and Richie smirks at him before settling back in his chair and crossing his arms over his chest.

“Don’t I?” He challenges with a narrowing of his eyes, and Eddie huffs in irritation before taking a deep breath to try and calm himself down. Operative word being ‘try.’

“What if I just refuse, and tell her I tried to tutor you but you’re just too much of a fucking moron and I couldn’t help? What then?”

“I’d tell her you’re lying.”

“You’d fucking snitch on me?”

“Yeah.”

Eddie groans in frustration, throwing his head back against his chair. “My life is in the hands of a fucking psycho.”

“It sure is, so why don’t you try being a little nicer, huh, baby? Maybe put on a smile for me? You always look prettier when you smile.”

“Fuck you.”

“We’ll get to that.”

“You fucking wish, you disgusting pervert. I should have gone for your balls.”

“Hindsight is 20/20, isn’t it?” Richie shrugs casually, but he’s still got that same calculating look in his eyes that lets Eddie know Richie is watching him for a reaction, for whatever reaction he’s pulling for, and Eddie’s pretty sure he’s about to give it to him.

“I hate you. I fucking hate you so fucking much, you fucking asshole. I fucking hate you.”

“I love it when you talk dirty to me, baby,” Richie tells him with a sly grin, and Eddie feels himself getting worked up all over again.

“As fucking if. You’re fucking disgusting and I wouldn’t go anywhere fucking near you, you dirty, sleazy cretin.”

“See, you say that, but then you’re always flashing me those ‘fuck me’ eyes. Sending me mixed signals, princess.”

“You fucking _wish!_ Ugh! God, you’re so fucking annoying, you stupid assclown. This is so fucking unfair. _I’m_ getting punished because _you_ fucking groped me in the fucking hallway. Un-fucking-believable.”

“Got it, next time I’ll be sure to do it in private, so you don’t have to pretend you aren’t fucking loving every second of it,” Richie growls lowly, and Eddie goes hot in his veins, and he wants to fucking scream. He swallows it down and forces himself to breathe, but he can’t unclench his jaw, and his whole body feels so tense it could snap.

“You’re a horrible, disgusting skeeze, and I fucking hate you, and I would rather flay my fucking skin off than ever have you touch me again.”

“Sure have changed your tune, huh? I seem to remember a whole lot of _Richie, can you hold my hand? Richie, will you carry me? Richie, will you hold me? Richie, can I sit on your lap?”_

Eddie flushes bright red all over his body, and he’s pretty sure his blood pressure is so high that he might faint.

“That was when you still had half of your fucking sanity.”

“Did I? I mean, do you really believe that, Eddie?” Richie laughs cruelly, and that amused gleam in his eyes shines brighter. “Or does believing that I wasn’t always like this just make you feel better about how badly you still want me?”

For a moment, Eddie is sure that he’s going to start hyperventilating. But then he realizes that he’s actually going to cry, so he shoves it down with the only thing he can think to say, which doesn’t come out as firmly as he hopes.

“I hate you, Richie.”

Richie’s smirk grows into that unsettling grin of his, and he leans over into the space between their chairs to whisper lowly, “Who are you trying to convince, Eds?”

“I told you not to _fucking call me that!_ ”

“You sure did,” Richie laughs, and he’s staring at Eddie with this sly amusement in his eyes, and he keeps looking Eddie up and down, and he bites his fucking _lip_ like he’s trying to fucking _flirt_ with him or something. Maybe this is just how sociopaths flirt.

“You are such a fucking piece of shit.”

“God, I fucking missed you, sweetheart.”

Eddie takes in a few heaving breaths, trying to find his anger again.

“I can’t fucking believe Principal Walsh fell for that disingenuous bullshitting, by the way. I could practically feel the sarcasm leaking out of you. You’re such a fucking disrespectful sack of shit,” Eddie snaps, and Richie just shrugs, biting off the end of one of his nails before flicking it behind the principal’s desk. Fucking disgusting.

“She didn’t buy it, she just doesn’t give a shit because she wants me gone. I’m pretty sure I could have called her a piss-mouthed bitch and she still would have made the same offer.”

“You just think you know fucking everything, don’t you?”

“Comes with the territory,” Richie winks at him, and Eddie wants to strangle him. He wants to climb over his own chair and into Richie’s, he wants to wrap his fucking hands around his throat and-

“Okay, so, did we discuss when we might have some free time to meet up? I’m thinking twice a week will suffice,” Principal Walsh announces as she re-enters the room, seemingly oblivious to the tension between them. Seemingly.

She hands each of them a blank calendar, and Richie immediately slides his over to Eddie, and Eddie throws a glare at him that he hopes will melt right into his head and maybe burn away the part of his brain that gives him the ability to fucking speak.

“I know you’ve got a busy schedule, Eddie. Whenever works for you will work for me,” Richie tells him with a plastic smile, and Eddie stares down at the pieces of paper in front of him, feeling more despondent than he thinks he’s ever felt before in his life.

Mrs. Walsh hands him a pen and he takes a deep breath before uncapping it to sign his fucking life away.

“I have track on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. So can we do Tuesdays and Thursdays?” Eddie grits out as politely as he can, and Richie still has that store-bought grin on his face.

“Of course, Eddie. Wouldn’t want to get in the way of your extracurriculars.”

“Time?”

“After school.”

“Place?”

“You can come to my house,” Richie offers innocently, except it isn’t innocent, because nothing Richie ever does is innocent.

“I’m not going to your house.”

“Well, Edward,” Mrs. Walsh chimes in uninvited, and Eddie is already grinding his teeth. “It would probably be best to study in the place that Richard is most comfortable in, so that he can better focus.”

“Yeah, Eddie; I’m so easily distracted,” Richie agrees, and Eddie glances over to see Richie staring right at him, holding back a smirk as his tongue darts out to lick over his bottom lip.

“Wouldn’t somewhere like the library be better, then, _Richard?”_ Eddie nearly hisses, barely managing not to break his teeth on the words.

“No, too many people. Makes me self-conscious,” Richie insists with that same barely-not-smirking look on his face, and honestly, Eddie’s never heard a funnier joke in his life. Narcissists don’t get self-conscious.

“I’m sure it’s embarrassing having to sound out the words in front of other people, huh?”

“Edward,” Mrs. Walsh warns, and Richie lets out an almost believably defeated sigh.

“It is, especially when my dyslexia gets really bad. I just get all nervous, and- and everything jumbles together. It would make me feel much better if it were just the two of us, Eddie,” Richie says fucking _earnestly,_ and now Eddie looks like a fucking asshole for making fun of him, and honestly, he should just shut the fuck up. Every fucking time he opens his mouth when Richie is involved, it gets him into more fucking trouble.

Eddie looks at Mrs. Walsh desperately, as if she’ll offer him another solution. He knows she won’t, and the disappointed, stern expression on her face has him agreeing out of compulsion, because he made an authority figure disappointed in him. Even if she’s being a cunt.

“Okay, yeah, we can go to your house, I guess.”

“Okay, lovely! Thank you boys for being civil about this, truly. Hopefully we can put this whole misunderstanding behind us and have a great rest of the semester. Right, boys?” she asks, with an infuriatingly chipper smile on her face.

“Of course, ma’am. Thank you for being understanding as well, I know how important Eddie’s scholarship is to him, and I really don’t want to cause him any trouble,” Richie tells her, and Eddie angrily finishes writing in their tutoring dates on Richie’s calendar before shoving it back over to him.

“Here. I expect that you’ll have all of your materials together before we start, I want to be done as quickly as possible. And to be clear, this isn’t going to be me sitting there and doing your homework for you; if you want a tutor, I am tutoring you. That’s it,” Eddie tells him firmly, and Richie stares down at Eddie’s handwriting for a moment before a wide grin stretches across his face.

“Of course, that’s it.”

Eddie storms out of the principal’s office as quickly as he can and beelines for his locker. Coach Tanner has a strict rule that if you’re more than 5 minutes late to practice, you can’t attend practice, which means you can’t compete in the upcoming meet. Which fucking sucks even fucking more.

Not to mention what the fuck he’s supposed to tell his mom about his hand. He could say it’s a track injury, although he’s not sure what could cause something like this. He could see the indents from Richie’s teeth in his skin after the nurse cleaned the blood off before bandaging him up.

Fuck Richie. Fuck him so fucking much.

He nearly makes it out of the hallway before he feels someone pull abruptly on his backpack strap from behind, and it takes everything in him not to cry.

“Richie, please, for the love of fuck; I just want to go home now, please,” Eddie knows he’s pleading, but he’s just so tired. He’s already hit his breaking point, he doesn’t have the energy for this.

“Just asking if you need a ride home, Roadrunner.”

“No, thank you.”

“No? That’s a shame, wanted to pay Mrs. K a visit. Sure she misses me, after all this time without a bit of the old in-out, in-out.”

Eddie doesn’t reply, resolving to just stare blankly up at Richie until he eventually gets bored and leaves him alone.

“Awe, come on, baby. You can’t be giving up this easily, I was hoping I’d have a week to play with my food, at least,” Richie smirks down at him, and Eddie betrays himself by letting out a small sigh, but he doesn’t say anything else.

“Wow, really? Who knew the little firecracker let his flame go out?” Richie asks him, and he’s smiling when he says it, and Eddie lets his words bubble up before he forgets to quiet them.

“Can you please just fuck off now? You did your worst, I’d like to go home now.”

“My worst? Oh, baby. It’s gonna get so much worse for you,” Richie assures with a mock-pout, and Eddie is so mad that he’s crying. Or maybe he’s just crying.

“Why are you doing this to me?” he asks for the second time today, and Richie’s horrible grin settles onto his face.

“Because I like doing it.”

A white hot burst of anger blasts through Eddie all over again, and he roughly wipes the tears out of his eyes with his un-bandaged hand.

“You’re- You’re a fucking _rat,_ you know that? You’re a fucking disease-ridden rat that just fucking… spreads its fucking plague everywhere it goes,” Eddie spits up at him, and he knows he’s being too loud, but he worries only briefly about being overheard before he’s distracted by the amused gleam in Richie’s eyes once again. “No, actually, you’re a fucking cockroach, because it’s fucking impossible to get rid of you, and all you fucking do is skitter around in the fucking shadows and shit all over _everything_ in my fucking life!”

Richie just keeps fucking _smiling_ down at him with his hands in his pockets, like Eddie just asked him how his fucking day is going or something. Eddie feels the cuts on his knuckles throbbing as they open back up under his bandages, because he can’t stop clenching his fucking fists.

“I like to think I’m more like a parasite. Like scabies,” Richie says with a grin, and then snaps his fingers in epiphany. “Or, actually, I’m like a tick!”

His smile gets so wide that all of his teeth are showing, and Eddie’s heart goes rabbit-quick in his chest. He takes a reactionary step backwards only to have Richie crowd up into his space, and Eddie is too frozen in fear to react when he reaches a hand up to cup the side of Eddie’s face, almost gently.

He pets down the side of Eddie’s cheek before dropping his hand down to his neck, and Eddie can feel how rapid his pulse is as it races under Richie’s thumb.

Eddie wants to push him away, or scream, or _something,_ but he can’t make his body move as Richie leans down to breathe directly into his ear.

“Because I crawl into all your warm places, and I drink my fill, and by the time you realize I’m there, I’m already living inside your skin.”

His grip tightens around Eddie’s neck just enough for him to really start panicking, and he reaches up to grab Richie’s wrist in both hands, and he really does intend to wrench Richie’s hand away from his neck, but he finds himself just holding his hands there, feeling oddly weak.

“Richie, stop,” he pleads softly, and Richie actually fucking _giggles_ at that, in his own dark, gross way that makes Eddie’s skin crawl all over his limp muscles.

“When are you gonna learn that word doesn’t work on me, baby?”

He’s looking down at Eddie’s lips again, and Eddie is trapped this time, and he feels real, genuine terror rip through him when Richie tilts his head slightly, like he’s really, _actually_ considering fucking kissing him right now.

And _god fucking dammit_ Eddie is so fucking mad all of a sudden that it feels uncomfortable inside of his body, and he has never fucking hated anyone in his life more than he hates Richie in this fucking moment.

He wasn’t even this mad when he fucking punched him earlier, truthfully. This is something he doesn’t think he’s ever fucking felt before.

Richie finally releases his throat and Eddie takes a few easy breaths, but then Richie is petting his face again, and Eddie supposes he can see what might drive a person to break all of someone’s fucking fingers.

“I’ll break you in half, princess. I’ll break you into so many pieces that no one else will ever know how to put you back together.”

A wad of spit is flying out of Eddie’s mouth before he registers what he’s doing, and it lands with a soft _spat_ against Richie’s cheek. And of all the reactions Eddie expects him to have, it definitely isn’t for his eyes to fucking dilate, and for him to reach up to wipe it off with his fingers before letting out one of those horrid, rumbling chuckles that leave Eddie’s teeth shaking inside his head.

“I appreciate the foreplay, sweetheart, but I’ve been ready for you this whole time,” Richie tells him lowly, before licking his fucking fingers clean with a deep, primal groan.

He curses out a harsh _fuck_ under his breath before reaching a hand _into_ the waistband of his pants, and Eddie watches in disgusted horror as he fondles himself in the middle of the hallway, and Eddie can see how hard he is inside of his jeans.

“Want me to give you something to swallow, too?”

Eddie takes a stumbling step backward before turning on his heels, and before he knows it, he’s sprinting full-tilt down the hallway.

He doesn’t look back until he’s bursting through the double doors at the end of the hall and out into the grass of the practice field, at which point he frantically glances behind him, half-expecting to find Richie standing right behind him.

But, for once, he’s nowhere to be seen.

Eddie does a pretty good fucking job of lying to his mom when he gets home, considering. As soon as he walks through the door, she’s at his side, grabbing for his hand with frantic eyes.

“Eddie, what on _earth_ happened to you?!”

“I just- I fell, during track. I fell jumping over a crossbar and just… landed weird, and scraped my hand up really bad on the asphalt.”

“You shouldn’t be _doing_ those jumps, Eddie, it’s dangerous!”

“I was just trying it out, it’s not my event or anything. I promise it won’t… won’t ever happen again.”

She lets it go after insisting on changing his bandages, and Eddie is able to talk her down until she agrees to let him change them himself, and he trudges his way up to the bathroom to pull the first aid kit out from underneath the sink.

He hadn’t realized how bloody the bandages have gotten, but then again, he shouldn’t be surprised considering how he spent all afternoon with his fists clenched, tearing his wounds back open.

He cleans himself up before bandaging his knuckles over again with clean gauze and crisp, white medical tape. And, honestly, once he’s lying in bed later that night and trying to get to sleep, he’s pretty fucking proud of himself, because he manages not to think about Richie much at all. Not until he slides his hand underneath his pillow to readjust his positon on instinct, and he feels his knuckles throb, and all he can think about is the smirk on Richie’s fucking face after Eddie punched him, and the way he flicked his tongue out of his mouth to catch the blood.

And really, by the time he’s going for his morning run the next day (as he always does on the days that he doesn’t have track), he’s nearly forgotten about the entire ordeal altogether. Well, maybe not forgotten, but as he’s running around his neighborhood, he realizes that there is absolutely fucking nothing he can do to change this situation, and he’s in a fucking hole he can’t crawl out of, and dwelling on it is just going to drive him fucking insane before he’s even sitting in Richie’s fucking house later this afternoon.

And, speaking of Richie’s house, he finds himself slowing down as he approaches it, and he’s not sure why, really. It just looks so unintimidating. Like he could be 12 years old again and stomp right up the brick steps to their front door and barge in, and Maggie would greet him with a hug, and he and Richie would race each other upstairs to his room to see who would get the player 1 controller on his NES.

It’s hard to think of Richie back then as the same Richie he knows now. Everything about them feels like different people, and Eddie wonders when Richie really started to become this person that he doesn’t recognize anymore.

But before he can think too much about it, the seizing, elephantine pressure explodes in his chest the way that it always does when he tries to remember much of anything before two years ago. He can’t. He doesn’t want to think about it.

So he doesn’t, and he starts jogging again, right past the Toziers’ sleeping house, wondering if all of them are really asleep inside.

He ends up finishing his run earlier than he normally does. He always finishes in enough time to get to school early so that he can shower and change his clothes, though he supposes now that his first period class is gym, it doesn’t matter so much. Still, force of habit is powerful, and he heads off to school anyway, because he figures this might be a good time to talk to Coach Tanner about missing practice yesterday.

He can feel his sweat sticking to his forehead still when he walks into the school, and he heads right for the gym so that he can drop off his stuff in the locker room. He’s rehearsing the groveling, apologetic speech he’s going to give him his whole way down to the gym, and the eerie blanket of quiet over the room abruptly breaks as his sneakers start squeaking against the hardwood to make his way into the locker room.

He sincerely believes he’s alone when he walks into the room, and that makes it all the more unsettling when he hears what sounds like a hushed whisper coming from somewhere. He tries not to think about it too much, but then he hears it again after dropping his backpack off, and he’s pretty sure that it’s coming from the showers.

And normally, he would just leave it alone. He’d leave it alone, and not investigate at all, because it’s a school, and kids do weird shit. But the idea that the voice might be coming out of the drain is consuming him, and before he knows it, his feet are carrying him into the big shower stall on the other end of the locker room.

He wants to just call out and say “Hello?” because that’s what you probably should do, in a situation like this. But the crippling fear of making whatever _it_ might be aware of his presence keeps him quiet, and he tiptoes as quietly as he can into the shower stall. And as he gets closer, his ears strain to pick up the words being whispered so harshly that it nearly sounds like a growling, lilting hiss as it crawls and drags itself through the air around his ears.

_Fuck, Jesus Christ, your fucking mouth. Fuck, look at me, fucking look at me, yeah, fuck, shit-_

Eddie freezes where he stands as soon as he sees them, and he wishes he hadn’t. He wishes he had turned right back around as soon as he heard those words, and found Coach Tanner, and pretended that he had never heard them at all.

Because it’s Richie, of course, why wouldn’t it be? And he’s leaned against the wall with his head tilted back, and his hands are in the brown hair of whoever is kneeling between his legs, and Eddie knows it’s a boy right away, at the very least.

A boy. Richie’s in the locker room getting sucked off by a guy, and even after those thoughts coherently form themselves in his head, he still can’t make his body turned around and walk away and pretend that he didn’t see this.

And then Richie blinks his eyes open, and Eddie’s heart leaps up into his throat, and he feels his muscles getting ready to carry his body out of the room, but they don’t get a chance to before those blue eyes have him pinned in place, and Eddie stares back with his own wide brown ones, and Richie uses his grip in the other boy’s hair to nearly slam his head down onto his cock as their eyes are locked, and he’s staring right at Eddie as he quietly mumbles “’M coming” in warning before his lips part around a guttural groan, and Eddie still can’t look away from his eyes as he comes down whoever-boy’s throat.

All of his blood goes boiling hot underneath his skin, and he feels weak in his knees, and his heart feels like it’s going to burst right the fuck out of his chest and splatter the walls around them in red.

As soon as Richie’s done, he’s pushing the other boy away from him probably a bit too roughly, and Eddie finally has the mind to start backing away, trying desperately to get his breathing under control as Richie pulls his pants back up and laughs at the expression on Eddie’s face.

And it must be Richie’s laughter that clues the other boy in that someone else is in the room, because he turns his head around to look at Eddie too, and he’s wiping _who fucking knows what_ off of his lips with the back of his hand, and his lips look so swollen and red, and it’s Jacob from his track team.

And his eyes go wide as he stares at Eddie in shock from where he’s still knelt on the ground, and his voice sounds so horribly hoarse and rough and _fucked_ when he lets out a quiet, “Eddie?”

And that’s what finally snaps Eddie into motion, and he turns on his heels before booking it out of the locker room, and his heart still feels like it’s going to fucking explode in his chest.

He runs all the way to Coach Tanner’s office, and he’s resolved to be a tattler. Because Richie was in the fucking locker room shower, getting sucked off by a _dude,_ and Eddie is going to finally, finally get him into the fucking trouble he deserves to be in. Stupid fucking prick. Fucking asshole.

He frantically knocks on Coach Tanner’s office door, but as soon as it swings open and he sees his coach standing on the other side of it, he decides not to tattle after all.

Because he’ll get Jacob in trouble too, and Jacob was probably coerced into doing it. Richie probably chatted him up all sweet, and turned on that charm he seems to have an expert on-off switch for, and he probably got Jacob to admit that he’s confused about his sexuality, and he probably convinced him to suck Richie off to help him figure it out, like an act of charity.

And as much as he wants to get Richie into trouble, Jacob doesn’t deserve that, and there’s not really a way to get one in trouble without the other. So as soon as he’s looking up into his Coach’s eyes, he decides not to say anything at all, because he’s sure Jacob just did it because Richie talked him into it.

“How can I help you, Kaspbrak?” Coach Tanner asks stiffly, and he’s got his arms crossed over his chest, and Eddie knows he’s mad already.

“I-I- Uh, I wanted to just… come by and say I’m sorry, before class starts. I’m sorry I missed practice yesterday, I just… just had… something came up,” Eddie’s plan for whatever he was going to say leaves him entirely, and this is the best he can come up with.

“Oh, I know it did. Seems everyone does, Eddie. Rumor has it you threw away your whole future for 10 seconds of payback over some… some _boyhood_ melodrama. I can’t believe you would have so little self-restraint, Eddie. And now, you’re going to lose your entire scholarship-”

“No! No, no,” Eddie tells him urgently, and Coach Tanner narrows his eyes skeptically down at him. “No, I- I’m not getting suspended, Principal Walsh said I can stay on the team if I- if I tutor him. Richie,” Eddie explains, and Coach Tanner claps him on the shoulder, pointing a firm finger down into his face.

“That is a god damn blessing, Kaspbrak. That’s a gift. You do whatever it takes to keep that scholarship, Eddie. Your whole future is riding on this,” he says firmly, as if Eddie doesn’t already know that. “Don’t let Tozier get under your skin.”

Eddie spends the rest of his time waiting for class to start sitting in the bleachers, bouncing his knee up and down as he stares down at his sneakers, because he thinks he’ll be afraid to look at anything ever again, for the rest of his life.

He hears the other students milling into the gym and making their way into the locker room to change, and he keeps his eyes glued to his dirty sneakers, counting the speckles of mud all around the toes to keep himself occupied.

And as soon as the whistle blows, he climbs down from the bleachers, and he keeps his head down as he starts his stretches, and he doesn’t look at Richie for the whole class, not once, even though he can feel Richie staring at him the whole time.

He showers even faster than yesterday once class is over, and he keeps his head down as he leaves the stall, and he tries the entire time he’s in there not to think about what Richie’s fingers looked like in Jacob’s hair, and what his cock looked like for the brief second Eddie saw it before he tucked it back into his pants, and mostly the savage look in his eyes as he stared at Eddie while he came.

But he’s so occupied doing this that he doesn’t quite look where he’s going, and he’s too busy looking at his feet to notice that he’s about to walk into someone until he already is. And as he’s colliding with a warm body in front of him, he knows it’s Richie, unfortunately, because he’s naked, and Eddie can see his cock where it’s hanging between his legs, just out in the open and on display, because he has no fucking shame.

And Richie holds him by his naked shoulders and Eddie snaps his eyes up on instinct, and the flames behind Richie’s eyes and in his smirk have Eddie wishing he could turn to liquid and wash down the drain in the middle of the floor.

“Eyes up, Kaspbrak,” he teases, and Eddie feels his whole chest go red, and Richie gives him a heavy wink before releasing his shoulders and walking past him and into the shower stall.

Things aren’t any better once class is over and he finds the courage to lift his head, because then he realizes that everyone is staring at him. As he walks down the hallway, people’s heads keep turning to look over at him, and their voices will drop, and he feels like he’s in a fucking glass display case with a spotlight shining right on him.

So he decides to spend his brief time in between classes hiding in the bathroom, so that he doesn’t have to feel everyone’s eyes on him, and listen to their voices go hushed, and wonder what they’re saying. Wonder about what sorts of rumors are going around about him after yesterday.

But he should probably have waited in an actual cubicle, because as he’s stalling the bell before lunch, Jacob comes rushing into the bathroom after him, and now he’s cornered.

“Eddie,” he says frantically, and his voice sounds normal now, but Eddie still finds himself cringing at the sound of it.

“Eddie, can we talk? Please?” he begs desperately, and Eddie shakes his head stiffly once, trying to ignore the desperate look in Jacob’s earnest brown eyes.

“Nothing to talk about.”

“Eddie, please, you can’t- you can’t tell anybody what you saw, okay? Please, please don’t- don’t tell anybody, _please,_ Eddie,” he begs desperately, and all Eddie can think as he looks at him is how the fuck he’s going to spend the rest of the season running with him without thinking about how _used_ his mouth looked after Richie came down his throat.

“Why the fuck would I tell anyone? Your… your fucking _secret_ is safe with me,” Eddie spits out at him, and he has no idea why he sounds so angry. He has no idea why he feels so angry.

“Eddie, I- I know you’re mad, okay? Or, I don’t know, I guess you hate me now, probably. And I get it if you don’t want to be friends anymore or whatever, but I didn’t- I didn’t want anyone to know, okay? So please just don’t tell anyone. I get it if you hate me, but please don’t tell anybody, Eddie. I don’t need the whole school hating me for being gay, too.”

That statement takes Eddie aback and he physically recoils at the suggestion, his eyes widening in shock. “Why- Why would I hate you for being gay?”

“Well you’re obviously mad at me.”

“I’m not- I’m not mad at you for being _gay!”_

“Then… Then why are you mad at me?” Jacob asks him softly, and all of the hairs on Eddie’s body stand on end, and he doesn’t know what the fuck he’s supposed to say.

“Uh… because- because that was a stupid thing to do, dude. You could- you could get kicked off the team for that,” Eddie settles on, even though he knows it’s a weak argument, and Jacob knows it too, because he raises an eyebrow at him.

“You’re one to talk, Eddie. I think you’re the one who’s lucky you didn’t get kicked off of track, everyone knows you punched Richie in the face yesterday.”

“Is that why you sucked his fucking dick? Because you just felt so _bad_ for him?” Eddie finds himself meanly snapping at him again, and Jacob clicks his mouth shut, and Eddie feels like an asshole again.

“I-I’m sorry, I just… I don’t- I don’t get along with Richie, okay? Sorry, I’m just- you should stay away from him, Jacob. He’s- He’s a dangerous person. He’s fucking crazy.”

Jacob bites his lip, an Eddie hates the fond smile that inches its way onto the other boy’s face.

“Yeah, I know, but I kinda like it. It’s exciting, you know? He’s like… like John Bender, you know? Or Kiefer Sutherland in _The Lost Boys._ I know he’s kind of a dick, but it’s like- it’s _hot_ , you know?”

_You know, you know, you know?_

“No, I don’t fucking know, because I’m not _gay,_ and even if I was, I wouldn’t be into someone as fucking… fucking slimy and gross and _sleazy_ as Trashmouth. So enjoy him, Jacob, he’s all fucking yours. I won’t tell anybody I saw you choking yourself on his dick this morning, don’t fucking worry,” Eddie seethes, pushing past Jacob to walk towards the door, because being exposed in the hallway is fucking leagues better than this.

“Well- Well thanks, Eddie.”

“Please, don’t fucking mention it.”

Being in the cafeteria is worse, because it’s like nearly the entire school can stare at Eddie all at once, whispering behind their hands about him. He stomps over to a table and throws his backpack down, slamming his head down face-first on top of it.

Not 10 seconds later, he feels a lunch tray slam down onto the table, and he is fucking enraged for a moment before he remembers that Richie is never in the cafeteria during lunch. He’s probably outside smoking. Probably behind the school getting fucking sucked off by _Jacob._

Luckily it’s just Stan, but he looks frantic, and Bill is right behind him to slide into the seat right across from Eddie.

“Where have you been all day? We’ve been looking everywhere for you,” Stan asks him sternly, and Eddie lets out a miserable sigh, resting his cheek back down onto his backpack.

“Hiding.”

“Is it t-t-true?” Bill asks him, and Eddie closes his eyes, and he really just should have skipped school today.

“Yep.”

“What happened? What did he do?” Stan presses, and Eddie lifts his head to rub firmly at his temples, ignoring the ache in his knuckles as he does it.

“He just- He came up to me after school and started just- just being weird to me, like he always is, and he just said some things I couldn’t- couldn’t deal with, I guess.”

“What d-did he s-say?”

_I know you don’t like being alone._

“Just… just the same things he always does. Called me girly names, and made fun of me for how I dress, and just… you know, the same things as always.”

“So why did you punch him this time?”

“Just had enough of it finally, I guess.”

“So- So does this mean your t-track scholarship is-”

Eddie interrupts Bill with a miserable sigh, and Bill and Stan exchange concerned looks.

“Nope. Walsh said I can keep my scholarship if I fucking _tutor_ him.”

_“W-What?”_

“Richie doesn’t need tutoring,” Stan echoes Eddie from yesterday, and Eddie sighs even more miserably the second time.

“Yeah, well, she doesn’t know that, or doesn’t believe it, or whatever. So I’m spending the rest of my last fucking semester of school spending two days every week trapped with him.”

“When do you start?”

“Today, after school. Going to his house, too, which is a nice little touch he threw in last minute, because it apparently makes him more ‘comfortable.’”

The three of them are silent for a moment, and Eddie turns his tired eyes onto Bill, who is looking at him with a worried furrow in his brow.

“Well- Well Maggie will probably be there, right? And Piper, too,” Stan tries to reassure, or maybe he’s saying it might be nice to see them, Eddie isn’t sure. “I actually saw Went at the grocery store a few days ago. He was- you know, it was weird, because I usually only see Maggie there, but he seemed happy to see me.”

“It’s definitely not them I’m worried about, but thanks for the reassurance.”

“W-Why is he even doing this in the first p-p-place, though?”

Eddie and Stan fall silent, because Eddie has an answer he doesn’t want to give, and Stan is probably unsure of what to say.

“Well, he always… you know. Eddie was always special. Maybe he’s just… trying to make up, in his own fucked up way.”

_Maybe he’s finally fucking lost it for good._

Eddie ends up being late for his art history class because he spends so long dragging his feet there, but honestly, he doesn’t think he can be blamed for that. His day today is more Richie-filled than not, and he thinks he’s earned being a few minutes late for his own waking nightmare.

“Mr. Kaspbrak, nice of you to join us,” Miss Neal says as soon as he walks in the door, and he sort of hates her for it. She must know he’s already been under a fucking microscope all day, why would she make it worse?

“Starting fights _and_ tardiness? Who _are_ you, Kaspbrak?”

Eddie whips his head around on instinct, and he has his teeth bared, and he is about to fucking scream and yell until that fucking smirk on Richie’s face melts right off at the heat of Eddie’s words.

“Mr. Tozier, that’s enough, alright? We’re not spending the entire semester like this. What’s in the past is in the past, what say we leave it there, hmm?”

Richie doesn’t even look at her, he’s just staring at Eddie as his face breaks out into a wide, genuine smile, so wide that it might split the cut in his lip open again.

“Yeah, of course, Miss. Water under the bridge.”

Eddie doesn’t respond and stomps across the room to the seat as far away from Richie as he can get, where he promptly sits silently for the rest of the class, stewing in his own fucking anger and sorrow and misery as he tries to ignore the eyes boring into the back of his head.

He storms out of the classroom as quickly as he can to get to the student lounge, and fucking thank _God,_ he actually has some homework to do today. So he tries his absolute best to focus on that, and not the stares of the few other students around him, or the way he could taste his heart in his throat when Richie walked into him after gym that morning.

And he really, truthfully does consider skipping calligraphy, but he’s already on thin ice with Principal Walsh, and he doesn’t want to try his luck. So he drags his feet down the hall and barely manages to get there on time, but when he walks into the room, he doesn’t see Richie.

But he doesn’t question it and sits down at his seat, and as he’s taking out his materials, Richie comes waltzing into the room to drop himself into the seat next to Eddie, reeking of cigarette smoke.

“Wow, smelling like a fucking ashtray, being late to class, getting fucking punched in your fucking stupid annoying face? I see you’re still the same fucking person you’ve always been,” Eddie barks at him immediately, and Richie raises an eyebrow, placing his hands up in a placating gesture.

“Woah, smooth down those hackles, tomcat. I didn’t even do anything this time.”

“Don’t fucking call me that, I’m not a cat.”

“Do you prefer kitten?” Richie asks slyly, and Eddie’s entire chest breaks out in heat.

“Fuck off. Don’t talk to me.”

“You started it, kitten.”

“Do not _fucking call me that.”_

“Sure thing, Eds.”

“Why are you literally a fucking child?”

“It’s just so _easy_ to get under your skin, baby. It’s like you’re trying to get me going on purpose,” Richie whispers lowly, and he has his fucking legs spread in that annoying, space-consuming way he always does, and Eddie’s eyes flash down to Richie’s crotch for a brief moment without his permission.

And he starts panting in anxious breaths, because he’s thinking about this morning, and how big Richie’s hands looked where they were locked into Jacob’s hair, and how Jacob sounded like he was choking when Richie started pushing down on his head.

And because Richie’s a mind reader, he obviously knows exactly what Eddie is thinking, and he lets out a chuckle as he brings his hand to rest on top of his own thigh, right next to where his cock probably is in his pants, and Eddie’s eyes betray him again by glancing down a second time at the movement.

Richie lets out an even louder laugh, and Eddie shrinks into himself, glancing frantically around the room for somewhere to run away to.

“I know I don’t have to ask if you liked _that_ show, kitten. I think it was pretty kind of me to let you watch. What are you gonna give me as a ‘thank you’ for my generosity?”

He’s leaning in way too close to Eddie’s personal space, and Eddie is getting sweaty and he feels so hot and he thinks he might be having an asthma attack.

“If you want an invitation to next time, it’s yours. I’d never pass up the opportunity to have two pretty little doe-eyed twinks hanging off my cock.”

Eddie is nearly hyperventilating when he shoots up in his seat, finally capturing the attention of their teacher, who looks at him in concern.

“Eddie, you okay?”

“Nurse! Nurse, please, I need the nurse,” he manages to gasp out, but he’s so weak in his knees, and his muscles give out all at once as he starts falling to the floor.

But he doesn’t quite get there, because a firm grip on his arm catches him before he does, and then something hard is being pressed between his lips.

He doesn’t realize it’s his inhaler until he tastes the bitter, medicinal taste of it coat the inside of his mouth and he breathes it into his lungs. He blinks his eyes open to see Richie staring down at him with an indecipherably intense expression, and they lock eyes just as he delivers a second puff into Eddie’s mouth, and Eddie sucks it in gratefully, finding himself unable to tear his eyes away from Richie’s.

“Eddie, goodness, are you okay? Somebody call the nurse! Get the nurse down here!” their teacher is yelling, and two students run out of the room to go find her as Richie eases Eddie down into a seat.

He watches as Richie caps his inhaler and puts it back into Eddie’s backpack pocket, in the same place he’s kept it since the start of his sophomore year, when he stopped wearing his fannypack to school. And he wants to say thank you, he wants to say _something,_ but he can’t find the energy, and his teacher is in his face now, trying to get his attention.

“Are you okay, Eddie? Can you breathe?”

“Y-Yeah.”

“The nurse is gonna walk you down to her office, okay?”

“Kay.”

Eddie spends the rest of the period lying down on a cot in the nurse’s office, and he really does feel fine now, at least physically. But he can’t stop turning over the events that just took place in his mind, and he doesn’t really fucking understand. At all.

Richie is a fucking sadist. Eddie figured he’d revel in the opportunity to make fun of him for having an ‘asthma attack,’ since he knows Eddie doesn’t really have asthma. He figured that would be a great opportunity for him to watch Eddie struggle and fall apart, which seems to be his favorite activity.

But he actually helped. And knew where to find Eddie’s inhaler, which means he pays attention, to some extent. And that seems like an uncharacteristically kind thing for him to do.

Maybe Richie just… doesn’t know how to be nice on purpose anymore. Maybe he’s just so used to being a fucking asshole all the time that he can’t turn it off anymore, and then little blips of kindness come bubbling to the surface after they fight their way up through all of the shit he has piled up inside of him.

He ponders this for the rest of the period until the final bell rings, and he drags himself out of the cot to make his way back down the hall to his classroom to get his backpack.

Except when he gets there, it’s gone, and really, he should have known. Should have known someone would steal it, and probably threw it into the dumpster outside, or he’ll walk out to the front of the school and see it scattered all over the lawn or hanging from the flagpole. Because that’s just how this day has been, and he wouldn’t be surprised. It’s not like other people don’t still pick on him sometimes, too.

So he miserably drags his feet down the hall to the double doors leading to the outside of the front of the school, and he wants to be upset. He wants to be mad at Richie for existing, and that his backpack got stolen, and that he has to spend the next two hours with a sociopath and can’t even do his own homework while he’s there.

But he just can’t find the energy.

So he stomps down the stone steps of the building and down the pathway onto the sidewalk, and just as he starts making his way down the street toward the last fucking place he thinks he wants to be right now, a car comes speeding up alongside him, and it screeches to a stop right next to him.

He startles and jumps back from the street, and he shouldn’t be surprised to see Went’s old 1970 Mustang, which Richie used to talk about all the time as a kid. _Dad said when I get my license, he’ll give me the Mustang. A Mustang, Eds! We’ll practically be Bonnie and Clyde!_

“Get in,” Richie orders while gesturing toward the passenger seat with a nod of his head, then takes a drag on his cigarette before flicking ash out of the window.

Eddie stands there frozen for a moment before gently shaking his head, and Richie rolls his eyes.

“Just get in the car, Eddie.”

“I- I can just walk.”

“I have your backpack.”

Eddie hesitates and bites his lip, but ultimately shakes his head again, and Richie huffs before he takes one last drag on his cigarette, flicking the butt onto the asphalt.

“Stop being a fucking priss and get in the god damn car.”

Eddie’s feet start moving on their own before he thinks he’s even made a decision, and he feels Richie’s eyes on him the whole time he walks around to the passenger side of the car. He’s so nervous that he’s shaking, and it takes him a few tries to get the door open before he’s sliding into the car seat, trembling so badly that he has a hard time gripping the seatbelt to buckle himself in.

Once he is, he carefully looks back over at Richie, who’s lighting another cigarette while staring at Eddie with that amused gleam in his eyes.

“What are you so afraid of, kitten? It’s not like I’m gonna kidnap you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OKAY SO THE SPITTING THING??? Y'all can thank the anon that unleashed the onslaught of horny asks I've been getting these past few days. Honestly, just bless u in general, u nasty bitch. I've had so much fun filling these requests and asks, but actually putting this one in the fic just.... *chefs kiss*
> 
> I also got a specific request from a friend to have Eddie call Richie either a rat or a cockroach, but I went with both, because it fit and I could so there's that.
> 
> Also shoutout to my girl @pjsdimples on Tumblr. She's literally been keeping me so motivated and feral and all we do is bounce ideas off of each other all day, and this story is going to be so much better because of her, y'all, I'm telling you. She's amazing and so so smart and I owe her the world for keeping me motivated and offering me that big beautiful brain of hers. 
> 
> And lastly, thank you to everyone who has sent me a request on Tumblr. Even just reading through the ones I haven't filled yet have me squealing. As for the anon who sent me the bj request, I hope the way I had it written is satisfying for you!!
> 
> Thank you everybody. Until next time <3


	5. The Hanged Man

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The moon was shining through the trees  
> And the wind was whistling low  
> I came upon a fork in the road  
> And I didn't know which way to go  
> I hit a gravestone with my knee  
> And it fell down to the ground  
> There was something swaying in the breeze  
> But it did not make a sound  
> Don't look at the hanged man

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [ Come sin with me on Tumblr ](https://bimmyshrug.tumblr.com/)   
>  ['Osculum Obscenum' playlist](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5lEdq6H9GE0hvXRLOKNMy1?si=8sBkPtTQSDeFOYURZmonWw)
> 
> PLEASE REVIEW UPDATED TAGS FOR TW!!!!!!!
> 
> Hello lovelies, I am back again! I missed this fic :') I hope you guys enjoy this chap, and let me know what you think!! I love you all dearly <3

Eddie hasn’t been in a car with Richie in so long that he almost feels like he’s dreaming, because he never thought he’d be sitting next to him in the passenger seat. Not since they were little boys, and Went would unlock the car so they could sit inside and swing their feet underneath the seats. Richie would tell Eddie about all the cool places he would take them to someday, even though Eddie knew they’d never really be able to go.

The memory burns in his chest and travels up to stick in his throat, and he almost allows himself to feel nostalgic, until Richie blows smoke out from between his lips to send it rolling down the inside of the windshield.

Eddie makes a disgusted face but manages to hold in a scoff, although he’s not sure why he’s trying to in the first place. Maybe he just doesn’t want to fight. It doesn’t feel that way, though, because he’s actively trying not to clench his fists in his lap. So maybe it’s something else.

_What are you so afraid of, kitten?_

“Um, Richie?”

“Yes, Eddie my love?”

_It’s not like I’m going to kidnap you._

“Please don’t call me that.”

“Please?” Richie laughs, glancing over at him in disbelief. Eddie sighs miserably and drops his head back against the car seat. “As much as I love to hear you beg, I’m sort of surprised you’re already busting out ‘please.’ The fun has barely started.”

“Richie…”

“The fuck has gotten into you, huh? You’re really gonna give up that easy? You’re ruining my fun,” Richie continues with a mock pout, and he glances at Eddie again, and Eddie rolls his eyes.

“Thought that’s what you wanted. Thought you wanted me to give up.”

“Not this fast, baby. I like a challenge.”

Eddie tries to get angry, but he doesn’t have it in him. He pauses, biting his lip between his teeth.

Maybe he’s just tired. Tired from the asthma attack (which Richie launched him into, for fuck’s sake) or tired in general, maybe. Tired of fighting. Tired of hating each other.

“Why did you do that?”

“Do what?”

“Help me.”

Richie looks genuinely taken aback by the question, and the amused expression on his face drops into something adjacent to pensive, though it quickly fades into an unreadable mask. Eddie watches as his lips curl back up into that slimy fucking grin, and he presses his uninjured fist into his thigh.

“I mean, I’m not particularly picky, but I don’t think you’ll be nearly as much fun to play with when you’re dead.”

“Fuck you, Richie.”

“Just saying, Eds. While I’m sure it’d be nice not listening to your bitching 24/7, that’s a small price to pay if I get to have you all warm and soft and squirmy when you finally drop the prude act and spread those legs for me,” he says with a wink, before taking another drag on his cigarette and blowing the smoke out of his nose.

Eddie’s whole body goes hot at once in a wave of embarrassment, or maybe anger. He can’t quite tell.

He shifts his legs in his seat and puts on a scowl to throw at Richie, who’s watching him with a laugh ready on his lips, like this is funny to him. Because it is. Because everything is a big fucking joke to him all the time.

“Shut the fuck up. You’re so fucking disgusting, don’t fucking say shit like that to me.”

“Is that how you’re gonna speak to the man who saved your life, Eds? I think I deserve a thank you.”

“Thanks for helping me Richie, you’re a real fucking pal,” Eddie bites angrily, though he really is thankful, on some level. Not that he’ll admit that.

“See, was that so hard?”

“Yeah, it was, actually. Being kind to you makes me feel fucking dirty.”

“Then part two of your ‘thank you’ is gonna make you feel fucking filthy, I’m sure.”

Eddie doesn’t quite manage to hold in the breath that huffs out of his nose, and he turns toward the windshield so that he doesn’t have to look at Richie’s stupid fucking face while he chuckles softly next to him.

“There is no part two. You’re fucking lucky I thanked you at all, and whatever else you think you’re getting from me, you can fucking forget it.”

“We’ll see.”

Eddie clenches his fists in his lap until he feels his injured knuckles stinging, then flattens them stiffly against the tops of his thighs.

“We won’t see, actually. Because we’re going to do homework, and then I’m going to go home, and that’s the end of it. And after a few weeks or so of this when your grades miraculously improve because we both know you don’t fucking need tutoring, you’re going to fuck off and leave me alone for the rest of the semester.”

“Oh, kitten, you don’t seem to understand,” Richie lets out a cruel, amused chuckle as he flicks his cigarette butt out of the window, and Eddie’s skin tightens over his muscles at the sound of it. “I _own_ you. Until I have that diploma in my hand, you’re mine. And I have a feeling I’m going to be a particularly difficult student, so I wouldn’t count on our little arrangement ending any time soon.”

“Why the fuck are you doing this to me?” Eddie asks, again, even though he knows he won’t get a different answer. “Why? It’s been fucking _years,_ and you’ve seemed perfectly content to just be a fucking asshole to me at school and have the courtesy to leave me alone most other times. So why now are you deciding to fucking insert yourself into other facets of my life? Do you just get off on fucking with me? What is it?” Eddie finishes with a yell, and he regrets his choice of words as soon as they leave his lips.

“Yes. But you already knew that. And I know you get off on it, too. I can see it in your eyes, you know. I’m sure you go home at night and lay in bed and think about what a big ole _meanie_ I am until you cream your little shorts.”

Eddie betrays himself by letting out a genuine gasp at Richie’s words before trying to muster up a disgusted scoff, but he feels more like crying, than anything. Which is weird. But he refuses to give Richie that satisfaction.

“I hate you, Richie.”

“I know you do, kitten,” Richie coos affectionately at him, before reaching over to pat him firmly on the thigh with his heavy hand. Eddie prepares for him to leave his hand there, and try to slide it between his legs, and probably grope him again with his long, deceivingly graceful fingers.

But he doesn’t. He pulls his hand back, and Eddie watches carefully as he brings it to the steering wheel, which he then starts to turn, because they’re pulling into the Toziers’ driveway.

Eddie’s anxiety returns to him all in a rush and he takes a few deep breaths, which rattle around inside of his lungs before coming back out of his nostrils heavier than they went in.

“Looks like my mom is home,” Richie says with a sigh, before putting the car into park and turning off the engine. “So I’ll have mercy on you and let you wait on that repayment, for now.”

“You’re never going to fucking get it, so fuck off.”

“Yes, I will,” Richie grins brightly at him, and Eddie wants to knock out his perfectly white, perfectly straight teeth. “You’d think after years of bitching about me being such a big bully to you, you’d be more grateful for my kindness.”

“You don’t deserve a fucking medal of honor for grabbing my fucking inhaler.”

Richie’s smile does that _thing,_ that fucking thing that Eddie can’t explain, where something just goes _wrong_ on his face. It’s a nearly imperceptible little shift that allows him to go from unassuming and charming to unsettling and frightening without him having to do nearly anything at all. Eddie thinks it’s something in his eyes that changes, but he never wants to look for long enough to be sure.

He slides closer to Eddie on the bench seat, and Eddie slides closer to the door, and Richie moves closer again until their thighs are pressed together. Eddie is pressed painfully against the window and the door handle, trying to calm his breathing and slow down his rapid heartbeat so that Richie doesn’t know he’s succeeding in terrifying him so easily.

He knows anyway, though, if the cruel little chuckle that he lets out is any indication.

Eddie manages not to flinch when Richie reaches his hand up to cup Eddie’s face and brush his thumb across his cheek, though he can’t stop his skin from going crimson under his touch, despite trying to remain nonchalant and quiet the screaming inside of his head.

“Maybe not, but we both know I never do anything out of the goodness of my heart, kitten,” he says lowly, and Eddie is thankful when those suffocating eyes finally look away from his own. Thankful, for a fraction of a moment, until they fall to his mouth instead.

And Eddie thinks Richie’s bluffing again, because he just likes to fuck with him. So he tries to stay calm, but then Richie brings his thumb down Eddie’s cheek and to his mouth, and an unwelcome tingle starts at the base of his spine and travels along every one of his nerves when Richie uses his thumb to brush against Eddie’s lips again, like he had right before Eddie punched him in the teeth.

Except this time, he doesn’t stop at parting Eddie’s lips to look inside of his mouth. He goes so far as to slip his thumb between Eddie’s lips and press the pad of it against Eddie’s bottom teeth to pull his jaw open, and Eddie doesn’t know why he’s letting him do this. He doesn’t know why he’s allowing him to touch him and stick his dirty fucking cigarette fingers in his mouth. He should fucking bite him. Bite down as hard as he can, until the tip of Richie’s thumb splits open under his teeth and spills blood all over his lips.

That thought snaps him out of whatever daze he’s in and he slaps Richie’s hand away, and Richie’s eyes snap back up to meet Eddie’s.

“Don’t- Don’t fucking touch me. You’re fucking gross, don’t touch me.”

Richie laughs again and brings his hand back up, this time to Eddie’s hair. He ruffles it gently before tugging hard at the back of it, and Eddie is mortified by the sound that escapes from his lips at the feeling of Richie’s fingers pulling against his hair.

Richie leans in until his lips are nearly pressed to Eddie’s ear, and he can feel them brushing against his earlobe as Richie breathes words against his skin.

“Once again, princess, who are you trying to convince? Me? Or yourself?”

“Richie stop- stop it.”

“Are you still afraid of me, baby?” Richie asks him gently, and Eddie tries to push his body further against the door and away from Richie’s. He only succeeds in doing one of those things, though, because Richie pushes himself harder up against Eddie, until he’s effectively trapped between the car door and the heat of Richie’s body.

“No, that’s not it. I think it’s something else,” Richie continues in a dangerous whisper, and Eddie wants to scream when Richie brings his other hand to Eddie’s thigh, brushing softly over the fabric, lingering horribly close to the fly of Eddie’s pants. “Isn’t it?”

“Get away from me.”

“See, not answering my questions is kinda answer enough, don’t you think?” Richie chuckles into his ear, and Eddie finally has the mind to bring his hands up to Richie’s chest to push him away.

“I don’t- I don’t have to fucking explain myself to you. You don’t want an answer, anyway. You’ll continue believing whatever the fuck you want to believe no matter what I say,” Eddie growls, shoving Richie away by his shoulders. He doesn’t budge.

“Because everything you say is a lie, Eddie. I don’t think you’ve said an honest word in your life.”

“You’re one to fucking talk!”

“I’m incredibly honest; honest to a fault, truthfully,” Richie laughs, and Eddie wants to slap the sound out of his mouth. “You just don’t _like_ the truth, so you want to believe I’m lying. This is who I am, baby. It’s who I’ve always been. It’s not my fault that you realized it too late.”

“You were _not_ always like this,” Eddie argues, and he hates that his voice sounds tearful and wet in the back of his throat. “You _weren’t._ You used to be _kind._ You used to be fucking nice to me.”

Richie presses his mouth right up against the lobe of Eddie’s ear, ripping another gasp from his throat as he tightens his grip in Eddie’s hair. He can feel Richie’s teeth against his flesh when he opens his mouth to growl into his ear, so lowly that it’s almost difficult to make out the words.

“You used to deserve my kindness.”

He shoves away from Eddie all at once and throws open the driver’s side door to climb out of the car, and Eddie can’t peel himself away from where he’s still pressed against the window, heaving in rapid breaths. Eddie holds himself as still as he can as Richie kicks the car door shut and opens the back instead, as though he might not be seen if he doesn’t move.

“Coming, or not?” Richie grumbles before grabbing both of their backpacks from the backseat, and when Eddie doesn’t respond, he raises an eyebrow. “Get out of the fucking car, Eddie. You’re the one who wants to go home so badly, so hurry the fuck up.”

Eddie scrambles for the door handle before nearly spilling himself onto the gravel driveway, and as he’s gracelessly regaining his composure, he curses himself. He has to calm the fuck down. If he’s this worked up already, he won’t last five fucking minutes inside of Richie’s house.

Richie’s fucking house. Looking at it and knowing he’s about to go inside again feels fucking surreal.

“Jesus Christ, space cadet. One foot in front of the other,” Richie snaps his fingers, and Eddie’s feet immediately start moving. He reaches out a trembling hand to take his backpack from Richie and slings it over his shoulder as they approach the front steps.

“Is- Is your sister home?”

“No, she’s at soccer practice.”

“So it’s just… just your mom.”

“Seems that way.”

“Is she- I mean, how is she? Is she… how has she been?”

“Ask her yourself,” Richie rolls his eyes before stomping up the steps to push the door open, and Eddie hesitates at the bottom step for a moment before running to follow him inside.

“Rich?” he hears Maggie call out from somewhere in the house after Richie slams the door shut, and Eddie’s heart rate kicks up again at the sound of her voice. God, why is he so fucking nervous?

“Yeah?”

“How was school?”

“Shitty, like it always is.”

Eddie hears Maggie let out a dramatic sigh from the kitchen, before she calls back, “Maybe you’d like school more if you didn’t go there every day expecting to be miserable.”

“Maybe I wouldn’t expect to be miserable if school didn’t constantly prove itself to be nothing but misery.”

Eddie rolls his eyes at Richie’s melodrama before following him down the hall, taking in the eerily familiar layout as they walk further into the house that Eddie hasn’t seen the interior of in nearly two and a half years.

It looks the same as Eddie remembers, which is almost shocking; like he had expected them to have torn walls down and rearranged their lives while he wasn’t looking. But it’s all the same. Same family photos hanging in the hall by the front door, same heather-gray carpet that Maggie somehow manages to keep pristine, same patched-over hole in the wall where Richie ran headfirst into it with his football helmet on, after he decided to try out for the pee wee team in sixth grade.

He made the team, but managed to concuss himself by ramming his head into the wall, so he never actually got to play before he lost interest altogether. The memory has Eddie giggling before he realizes what he’s doing, and Richie throws a confused glance back at him as he walks around the corner and into the kitchen to greet his mother.

Eddie follows closely behind and stops in the doorway, because Maggie is sitting right there, in plain sight. Right at the breakfast bar, with her long legs crossed at the ankle, flipping the page of the paperback novel in her hand with her elegant fingers.

Another memory punches through Eddie’s mind of him and Richie sitting with Maggie between them on the bench of the piano in their living room, trying their best to follow the way her hands would glide across the keys. Eddie never quite got the hang of it, but Richie learned to play Für Elise, and sometimes he even played it well. He used to try to teach Eddie, too.

Well, sort of. He’d sit on the bench with Eddie in his lap, and Eddie would put his hands on top of Richie’s while he played. It wasn’t a very effective teaching method, and they’d always devolve into a fit of giggles when Richie played an off key, and sometimes Eddie would press on his fingers to make the sour notes on purpose, just so they could laugh.

Eddie wonders if Richie’s touched the piano since then.

“I see we’re feeling particularly Holden Caulfieldy today?” she jokes, not yet looking up from her book as Richie walks further into the kitchen and over to the fridge.

“Oh yeah, somewhere between ‘Who wants flowers when you’re dead?’ and ‘I didn't want a bunch of stupid rubbernecks looking at me when I was all gory.’”

“Not funny, Rich,” she scolds while raising one of her dark eyebrows, and Eddie’s breath catches in his throat as her eyes follow, and he sees that same striking shade of blue peek out from over the cover of her book.

“You started it!”

“That doesn’t mean you-” she stops as her gaze falls to the doorway, and her eyes immediately go wide as she freezes in her seat.

“Eddie?”

“H-Hi, Miss Maggie,” Eddie manages to choke out around the lump in his throat, then nearly cringes into his shoes. He hasn’t called her that in years. Well, to be fair, he also hasn’t spoken to her in years.

She stares at him for a moment longer before throwing her book down onto the counter, and Eddie watches as the pages flutter closed without a bookmark between them.

“Eddie, oh my goodness, what are you doing here?” she asks him with that same gleaming smile she’s always had as she quickly stands from her stool, though her eyes give away her confusion underneath the joy that’s clear on her face. Which, to be entirely honest, makes Eddie feel really, really happy, because he’s more emotional about seeing her again than he thought he would be.

“I’m- I’m here to tutor Richie,” he explains softly before she pulls him into a hug, pressing his head into her shoulder as she wraps her long arms around him, like it hasn’t been years since she’s last done it. Eddie is relieved that he still feels so small in her arms.

“Tutoring? Richie, you don’t need a tutor,” she rolls her eyes when she pulls away, and Richie shrugs from where he’s now leaning against the counter, drinking orange juice straight from the carton.

“I’m struggling in English.”

“You’re struggling in _everything,_ because you’re lazy, not because you need a tutor. And I’ve told you a million times not to drink from the carton!” she scolds, and Richie throws his free hand up defensively.

“It’s basically empty!”

“Oh, is it?”

“Yes!”

“So you’re going to drink the rest of it?”

“Yeah!”

“Yeah? Go ahead, then,” she encourages, crossing her arms over her chest, and Richie rolls his eyes before bringing the carton to his lips and tipping his head back. After he takes four large gulps, Eddie realizes it must be at least half full, and he hates that he can’t keep himself from snorting out a laugh when Richie stops chugging to take a breath.

“Okay, fine! I’ll just write my name on the front, then no one else will drink it. Fair?”

“What if I wanted some?”

“I lived inside of you for nine months, I think you can drink after me, mom,” Richie rolls his eyes, and Maggie sighs, rolling her eyes as well as Richie closes the carton and puts it back into the fridge. She turns back to Eddie with another warm smile, and his lips curl up immediately to return it with his own.

“I’m so, so happy to see you, Eddie. We’ve missed you around here,” she tells him warmly, and Eddie wonders how much she knows. She definitely knows that Richie broke Bill’s fingers, at least.

“I’m really happy to see you too,” Eddie tells her, and he means it. God, he means it so fucking much he wants to cry.

And maybe she can tell, because her smile turns a bit blue before she reaches out a hand to rub gently along Eddie’s bicep.

“Make yourself at home. Let me know if you need anything, sweetheart.”

Eddie tears up so suddenly that his eyes are burning, and he tries to blink it away before she notices. And he’s sure that she does, but she politely pretends not to before she squeezes him gently on the shoulder and goes back to her stool.

“I- I will.”

“Alright, let’s go,” Richie grumbles before pushing away from the counter, and Eddie feels his good mood leave him so suddenly that his bones feel tired, because he forgot that this isn’t just a nice visit to see Maggie.

“Where are we going?”

“My room,” Richie replies, ushering Eddie out of the kitchen with a wave of his hand. Eddie doesn’t move at first, and Richie rolls his eyes, gently placing his hands on Eddie’s shoulders to turn him around and guide him into the hallway and out of sight of his mother, where he proceeds to slap Eddie on his ass. “Pick up the pace, Spanky.”

Eddie wants to tell him to go fuck himself, or cuss him out, or something. But Maggie is right there, and he doesn’t want to make himself look like an asshole. Clearly she isn’t aware of just how much things have changed between them, which Eddie finds surprising.

So he walks, and allows Richie to guide him toward the staircase with a firm grip on his shoulder. And once they make it to the steps, Eddie hesitates, wondering what exactly is in store for him once he gets up there.

“Richie?”

“What?”

“What- What exactly are we going to do, if I’m not… actually tutoring you?”

“Homework, Eddie. Why, did you have something else in mind?” Richie asks from behind him, leaning over to whisper that last part into his ear. Eddie shivers before scoffing at him, taking a step forward to get Richie’s body heat away from himself.

“Fuck off.”

But that means taking his first step up the stairs, and he feels his palms getting sweaty already. He takes a deep breath and starts to climb the rest of the steps, and Richie follows him shortly after.

Eddie isn’t sure exactly what he was expecting to walk into, but it definitely isn’t the underwhelming, deceivingly _normal_ state of Richie’s room.

He wouldn’t venture so far as to call it neat, but it’s certainly less of a disaster than he expected it to be. Richie has never been an organized person, and he’s still a habitual ignorer of his closet and his hamper, if the clothes scattered about his floor are anything to go by. But really, it’s nowhere near the disaster it used to be.

When they were kids, it was utter chaos. Richie had dozens of posters tacked to his walls, small stacks of comic books and tapes littered all about, and seemingly hundreds of Polaroids in every possible corner of his room. Most were of the seven of them, taken in various places all over town, bust mostly at the park and the arcade and the clubhouse, where he had a similar stack of photos (though they were all the ones he knew his parents would get mad about, like he and Bev smoking, and many of Eddie flipping off the camera).

The only similarities are the tapes everywhere (though there are many more than Eddie remembers there being before), and his mismatching bed set, which Richie throws his backpack onto before plopping down onto his mattress to take out his school binder.

Eddie watches as Richie takes out a pen and opens up his pre-calculus book, and he starts doing his homework. Actually doing his homework, with no prompting. Without saying anything, actually. For a moment.

“Gonna just fucking stand there all day?” he barks, without looking up from the equation that he’s scribbling down into a notebook. Eddie’s immediate reaction is to apologize, but he swallows down the urge and clenches his fists at his sides.

Eddie huffs a frustrated breath out of his nose, and Richie glances up from his work to quirk an eyebrow at him. “What?”

“Why the fuck am I here, Richie?”

“To tutor me.”

“You don’t fucking need tutoring!”

“Then sit down, shut up, and do your own fucking homework.”

“I’d rather do that at my own fucking house, away from _you.”_

“Tough shit,” Richie shrugs, and goes right back to his math equation. Eddie looks around briefly for something to throw at his stupid fucking head, but thinks better of it before reaching for one of the tapes on Richie’s dresser.

Maybe it’s just a matter of calling Richie’s bluff.

“I’m going home.”

“Then I’ll be sure to tell Walsh you bailed tomorrow at school.”

“What the fuck, Richie?” Eddie means to ask firmly, but it comes out as a whine, and he barely manages to stop himself from stomping his foot on the ground like a child.

“We had an agreement,” Richie shrugs, still refusing to look at him, and Eddie can feel the simmering anger building up under his skin.

“One that you fucking trapped me into!”

“If you don’t want to walk into a trap, you should probably watch your step a little better, shouldn’t you?”

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?!”

“It means sit the fuck down and shut the fuck up, Eddie.”

Eddie feels like throwing a temper tantrum, and he sort of does, childishly stomping his way over to Richie’s bed before plopping down onto it with a growl.

He tugs his own schoolwork out of his backpack, and he sits as far away from Richie as he can on his queen sized bed, and he starts his own homework.

And really, it isn’t so bad, after a while. They mostly sit in silence and do their own work, and Eddie is annoyed that he isn’t doing this at his own house, but he is thankful that Richie is leaving him alone and focusing on his own tasks.

Or, he should be thankful, probably. He feels sort of annoyed by it, though he isn’t quite sure why. Silence is leagues better than whatever gross, mean shit Richie might be saying if he were talking, rather than focusing on his math homework. Maybe it’s just because he’s being forced to be here in general. Either way, he focuses on his own work, and he doesn’t dare to poke the bear while he seems relatively calm.

But Eddie can’t stop flinching. Every time Richie makes even a slight movement, he feels every muscle in his body tense up, like he’s expecting Richie to reach across the bed and grab him and pin him down and maybe even kiss him, like he’s pretty sure Richie was going to do when they were in his car earlier. What he probably would have done, if Eddie hadn’t snapped out of his daze and smacked him away.

He doesn’t think the flinching is that noticeable, until nearly an hour has gone by, and Richie snaps his pre-calculus book shut, causing Eddie to let out a small yelp at the noise.

“What’s your fucking deal?” Richie snaps, and Eddie startles at that, too, before gritting his teeth in annoyance.

“What do you mean, what’s my _deal?_ ”

“Why are you acting like I’m going to fucking hit you or something? You were the one who punched _me_ , if I recall. And I haven’t laid a fucking hand on you since we’ve been up here,” Richie defends, crossing his arms over his chest. It makes him look so much broader, and Eddie stops himself from shrinking under the weight of Richie’s intimidation. Because he’s not going to allow himself to be fucking intimidated by this twat.

“Yeah, since we’ve been up here. Need I remind you that you slapped my fucking ass downstairs?” Eddie argues, and Richie lets out a huff of a laugh before rolling his eyes towards the ceiling.

“Oh no, I gave your ass a little love tap, poor fucking you.”

“I didn’t say you could touch me!”

“Maybe not with your mouth.”

“Not with my _anything!”_ Eddie nearly screeches, before remembering that Maggie is downstairs and forcing himself to keep it at a hushed scream.

“You really think so, huh?”

“I _know_ so! Because you’re a disgusting fucking cretin, and I _never_ want you to touch me! And I know you’re trying to lure me into a false sense of security so that I’ll let my guard down so you can fucking- fucking- do whatever the fuck you’re _actually_ planning on doing to me!” Eddie nearly yells, and Richie lets a frustrated huff out of his nose, and he’s not smirking or grinning or laughing. He looks genuinely mad. But Eddie keeps going, because he can’t shut the fuck up.

“I know you brought me to your house, to your fucking _room,_ because you’re thinking that I’m gonna- gonna fucking do something that I absolutely will _not_ do.”

“Oh? What might that be, Eds?” Richie asks, cocking his head to the side, though he still has that unreadable expression on his face that Eddie knows only means danger. And he still doesn’t stop talking.

“You know what I mean.”

“I don’t think I do, so enlighten me.”

“You _know what I mean.”_

Richie lets out a breath before the corner of his mouth starts to turn up, and Eddie clenches his fists on his thighs.

“What’s so fucking funny?” Eddie hisses, and Richie shakes his head before dragging his hands down his face in exasperation.

“Nothing, Eds.”

“Clearly something!”

Richie rolls his eyes again, and Eddie has to stop himself from launching forward to tackle Richie back onto the mattress. “Just fucking say it, if you have something to say!”

“You’re so fucking transparent, you know that?”

“I’m- What?”

“See through, Eds.”

“I _know_ what transparent means, you dick! What the fuck are you saying that for? You don’t fucking know anything about me,” Eddie snaps, and Richie barks out a laugh.

“You really think that, baby? You’ve been exactly the fucking same since we were kids, you get that, right? Everything you say has a double fucking meaning. Maybe if you spent less time carefully choosing every fucking word you say, and more time being fucking _genuine,_ you wouldn’t be so fucking stressed out all the god damn time. You’ll put yourself into an early grave with all that micromanaging, Eds.”

Eddie panics, because he’s unsure of what to say. He doesn’t know how the fuck he’s supposed to reply to that, so he clings onto the part of it that feels safest.

“Because you’d care so fucking much if I died, right? Fuck off.”

“Shockingly, yeah, I would.”

“Why, because you want the fucking _pleasure_ of finally taking me out yourself?”

“Because we’re gonna die together, baby. Like Thelma and Louise. You’re not doing down without me,” Richie jokes. Or, Eddie thinks it’s a joke. He can’t really tell, because Richie is looking at him with that same nearly emotionless expression, and Eddie wants to fucking scream.

And he knows he should swallow down the words that are fighting their way up his throat, but he can’t. They’re too hot, and they’re burning up his tongue as he tries to force them to stay inside.

“Oh yeah? How do you fucking figure that, Rich? I’m gonna be _gone_ in less than a year, making something of myself and actually _doing something_ with my life, while you’re still fucking off in this stupid fucking town, because you’re _trash._ You’re _nothing._ You’re just a fucking deadbeat loser with nothing going for you, and you’re going to die in this fucking hellhole, _alone._ You’re gonna fucking waste away while I’m actually accomplishing something with the life that I’m fucking _grateful_ I still have!”

Eddie nearly screams that last part, and he only notices that he has tears in his eyes when he doesn’t see Richie movie in time to flinch away.

He really does scream when he feels Richie pull him to the middle of the bed before shoving him down, and he blinks the tears out of his eyes just in time to see Richie’s face contort in anger as he climbs on top of Eddie to pin his wrists to the bed so tightly that he can feel his bones ache.

“You wanna know what makes you so fucking _transparent,_ Eddie?” Richie leans down to growl into his ear, and Eddie is desperately trying to kick Richie off of him, but he’s just so heavy. “Everything you fucking do is to get a rise out of me. You can’t stand not having my attention. If you _really_ wanted me to leave you alone, you’d stop fucking provoking me. But you can’t handle it when you think I’m not paying attention to you. And apparently, you can’t even handle me being fucking _nice_ to you. So is this what you were aiming for? Is this what you wanted to happen?”

Eddie wails loudly underneath him and tries to rip his wrists out of Richie’s grasp, but he only succeeds in causing him to squeeze harder. He briefly thinks of where Maggie is, and he glances over at Richie’s bedroom door, wondering why she hasn’t come upstairs yet.

“I think this is exactly what you wanted, kitten. That’s why you bitch at me at school all the time, because you want me to bitch right back. That’s why you fucking punched me, because you want me to fucking hurt you, too. You just can’t fucking help yourself,” Richie growls down at him, and Eddie furiously shakes his head from side to side, hating himself for the tears leaking from the corners of his eyes.

“No, you fucking psycho! It’s because I fucking hate you!”

“No, it isn’t. If you hated me, you’d ignore me. You give me your attention because you want mine,” Richie accuses before the corners of his mouth curl up into that unsettling grin, only this time, Eddie is trapped underneath him, and no amount of fighting back is going to change that.

Just like all those years ago in the clubhouse, when he was less sure that Richie might actually do something terrible to him. When he really believed that things would be okay, and that Richie was just taking jokes too far, like he always did.

Because he had done it before. He’d pinned Eddie down too hard and laughed at him; he had. A lot of times, and maybe Richie was right, maybe he has always been like this.

_Come on, Eds, don’t cry like a little baby. You’re not a little baby, are you?_

_Quit bitching; it doesn’t hurt, drama queen. I’m barely even touching you._

_When’s your big boy body scheduled to arrive, Eds? Maybe they shipped it to the wrong address._

_You’re still a little boy, so what’s the difference now?_

“Richie, stop!” he shrieks, but Richie only grins wider, and Eddie just wants Maggie to come upstairs, so she can see what Richie is doing to him and make it stop. Just like she used to when they were kids, and Richie would say something a little too mean, or roughhouse _too_ roughly.

_Richie, don’t be a bully._

Eddie screams again, and Richie laughs. He’s _mirthful._

“I know what you’re doing.”

“Richie, get off of me!”

“She’s not here.”

Eddie stills underneath him, and his skin goes chilly with anxiety, breaking out into goosebumps all over his chest and his arms.

“W-What?”

“She went to go get Piper from soccer, like, ten minutes ago. It’s just you and me here.”

Eddie sobs, this time crying out purely in frustration. Richie just laughs and laughs, because it’s a joke. It’s all a fucking joke.

“Guess your little plan backfired, didn’t it?”

“I didn’t fucking plan this!”

“Didn’t you? I mean, weren’t you hoping you’d make me mad enough to do something just _terrible_ to you, and then Mags would come running upstairs to save you, and then you wouldn’t have to come back here? Or am I giving you too much credit?”

Eddie sobs again, urgently trying to wriggle himself out from underneath Richie, only to have him seat himself more firmly on top of Eddie’s small body.

“Looks like instead, you pissed me off without anyone here to rescue you from the terrible things I’m going to do to you.”

“Stop! Richie, stop, don’t- don’t do this to me,” Eddie begs through heaving breaths, feeling the cool chill of fear all over his skin turn hot when Richie’s eyes light up at his words.

“What exactly do you think I’m gonna do to you? Tell me, baby.”

“Richie, please!”

“Begging me like that isn’t gonna help, kitten,” Richie laughs, and the fire in his eyes glows as Eddie fails again to wiggle out of his grasp.

“Please, please don’t, Richie, _please.”_

“Do you still go to church, Eddie?” Richie asks him, and the question catches him so off-guard that he physically startles, and Richie lets out a deep chuckle from above him.

“W-What?”

“You know what my favorite Bible verse is?”

“What- What are you talking about?” Eddie asks, and his breaths are frantic where they’re heaving in and out of his lungs, and Richie is still beaming down at him with a laugh ready on his lips.

“’An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.’ You know that one, don’t you, Eds?”

“Richie _stop!”_ Eddie screeches, because he doesn’t know where this is going, but he knows that it’s nowhere good, and he feels like he’s going to burst out of his skin with anxiety.

“You’ve been _awfully_ mean to me lately, baby,” Richie pouts down at him, and Eddie is so terrified and fucking confused that all he can do is cry, and he hates himself for the weak little whimpers he’s making in the back of his throat. “Punching me twice, and then _spitting_ on me? That’s a real rotten thing to do, don’t you think?”

“Richie-”

“Plus I was so kind as to help you with your little fit earlier. Think I’m owed a little payback, don’t you?”

“Richie, whatever you’re going to do, just please- please don’t do it, please, I’m sorry,” Eddie begs through hitching sobs, and Richie tut-tuts at him, shocking Eddie by letting go of his wrists.

“Poor baby, I know you’re sorry. But sorry doesn’t make it all go away, does it?” Richie coos at him, reaching a hand down to pet gently down the side of Eddie’s face, before lightly gripping Eddie’s chin in his fingers. “So after this, we’ll call it even, okay, sweetheart?”

“N-No, please, I’ll- I’ll do your homework for you! All semester, I’ll do all of your homework,” Eddie sniffles, and Richie barks out a laugh at his only bargaining chip.

“I don’t give a fuck about homework, Eddie. That’s not what I want from you,” he leans down to whisper into Eddie’s ear, tightening his grip around Eddie’s jaw. “You know what I want.”

A hot shiver zips down Eddie’s spine at Richie’s breath in his ear, and he shifts his legs underneath Richie’s weight again. “R-Richie…”

“I know you want it too. Don’t lie.”

“I don’t- I don’t know what you mean.”

“Didn’t I _just_ tell you not to lie to me, baby? You’re not a very good listener.”

“Please, no. Please, Richie, _please.”_

“That’s okay, though; you just need training, don’t you, kitty?”

“Richie, get off me!”

“God, Eddie, I’ve been waiting for this my whole life,” Richie continues lowly, and Eddie gasps as he gently trails his fingers down to Eddie’s neck on one side, barely brushing his lips against Eddie’s skin on the other. “I’ve always wondered if you’d just lie there and take it.”

Eddie’s pulse is racing so fast that he’s lightheaded, and all of his skin feels so hot, and he can’t stop fucking crying, and his breaths won’t stop hitching when Richie brings one of his hands down to reach underneath Eddie’s t shirt to gently run his fingertips along Eddie’s skin.

“Richie, please.”

“I know what you want, baby, don’t worry. I’ll give it to you.”

And Eddie thinks about all the times he’s lied in his bed at night thinking about this, about Richie on top of him and touching him underneath his clothes. About how ashamed he’d always feel, and how he forced himself to pretend that he didn’t ever think about those things, because thinking about them scared him. And he never thought it would happen, anyway. Never thought he’d be in this situation. But the reality of it is crippling, and he just wants to go back to the way things were between them a few days ago, when they could hate each other from afar, and Eddie didn’t have to think about these feelings ever again.

He can’t do that with Richie’s hand on his skin, and Richie’s lips ghosting across his cheek, and Richie’s weight on top of him. He can’t do that when he’s fucking terrified and so hard in his pants that it hurts.

“Please, Richie.”

He brings his hand back up to Eddie’s jaw and lightly grasps his chin in his fingers, and Eddie gasps when Richie leans back up to look down at him with the same dark look in his eyes that Eddie has seen a thousand times. He just didn’t ever recognize it as lust before.

“Please what, kitten?”

Eddie doesn’t respond, because he doesn’t know what to say anymore. It doesn’t matter, though, because Richie smiles almost fondly down at him, and Eddie’s heart flutters behind his ribs, and he fucking hates this. He hates this so fucking much.

“You’re so beautiful, you know that?”

His words punch Eddie in the gut so hard that he gasps, and Richie leans down until their lips are barely brushing against one another, and Eddie can feel Richie’s breaths hot against his mouth.

Richie uses his grip on Eddie’s jaw to gently pull his mouth open, and Eddie lets him. But he keeps going after Eddie’s lips are parted, and Eddie’s only ever kissed Richie, but he doesn’t think you open your mouth this far to kiss, normally.

“So pretty when you cry.”

Eddie doesn’t realize that he has his eyes closed until they snap open at the sound of Richie hocking in the back of his throat, and he immediately tries to close his mouth, but Richie tightens his grip on Eddie’s jaw to keep it open.

He shrieks and remembers that his hands are free, finally, and tries to use them to push Richie away. He can’t, so he brings his hand up to slap Richie across the face instead, and he cries out again at the moan Richie lets out in response.

“Fuck, baby; harder next time,” he whispers, and Eddie gets frantic, pushing Richie’s face away with his hands, unable to do much more than sob.

Richie lets go of Eddie’s face to grab his wrists and wrestle them back down onto the bed in one of his hands, before bringing his other hand back to Eddie’s mouth.

“Open up, princess; fair is fair,” he orders, and he has that malicious, lascivious grin back on his face, and Eddie wants to wail, but he refuses to open his mouth.

“Awe, come on, don’t be like that. You didn’t seem to mind when you spat on me.”

Eddie wants to argue that Richie fucking liked it, and he didn’t spit _into Richie’s fucking mouth,_ but he doesn’t want to risk opening his lips back up, so he doesn’t.

“Didn’t seem to mind when you thought I was just going to kiss you, either. I fucking knew you wanted me, Eddie. You’re so fucking see-through, it’s ridiculous. You think you’re so aloof, but I have you fucking read like a book. You’re fucking easy, you know that? At least make it a god damn challenge.”

Eddie opens his mouth to retort before thinking, and Richie is on him immediately, pushing his fingers between Eddie’s lips to pry his jaw down by his teeth. Eddie screams in the back of his throat, and he’s sure he’s trying to say words, but all of them sound garbled and incoherent with his mouth open so wide.

“Shh, it’s okay, baby. Make sure you swallow like a good boy, okay?” Richie coos down at him before hocking at the back of his throat once more, and Eddie frantically tries to break out of Richie’s grip, or throw him off balance by thrashing his hips, or something. But Richie doesn’t budge.

He’s horrified by the pathetic sobbing that he’s letting out, and the way that it devolves into incoherent screeching as he tries to turn his head away from Richie’s parting lips.

He can’t decide if he should close his eyes or not, and then it’s too late, and he’s staring right into Richie’s cold, unsettlingly amused blue eyes right as a thick wad of spit lands on his tongue and starts to slide into the back of his throat.

His immediate reaction is to try to cough it back up, but Richie lets go of his mouth as soon as he’s done and slaps his hand over Eddie’s lips, and Eddie sits there for a moment with Richie’s spit sitting hot at the back of his throat.

“Swallow.”

So he does. He doesn’t have much of a choice, anyway, unless he wants to hold Richie’s spit in his mouth for even longer. So he forces his throat to swallow down the slimy wad around a painful gag, and his sobbing, which comes out muffled from behind Richie’s palm.

“Good kitty,” Richie praises once he’s done, and lets go of his grip on Eddie’s wrists and on his mouth to gently pet through his hair. Eddie screams again as soon as his mouth is free.

“What the _fuck_ is wrong with you?!” he sobs out, and Richie parts his lips around a laugh as he places his hands on either side of Eddie’s head where he’s still straddling him on the bed.

“Aside from the obvious?”

“I’ll _kill you!”_

“It’s okay baby, you can admit you liked it.”

“I did not fucking _like it,_ you sick fuck! I want to fucking vomit!”

“I find that hard to believe, since your cock is just as hard as it was when I first pinned you down.”

Eddie’s eyes go wide and he gasps in a shocked breath, and Richie chuckles down at him again as his eyes light up once more in glee.

“Oh, you didn’t think I noticed? I don’t blame you. Seems like you haven’t had much growth downstairs either, huh, squirt?”

“Fuck you,” Eddie sniffles out miserably, and Richie’s grin grows and grows until Eddie can see all of the terrible fangs behind his lips.

“It’s okay princess, it’s nothing to be ashamed of.”

“Get the fuck off of me!”

“Do you wanna see mine?” Richie asks innocently, and Eddie’s eyes immediately dart down to the crotch of Richie’s pants, and he gasps in another breath at the very visible bulge there. “I know you didn’t quite get as close of a look as you wanted to earlier, did you? At least, that’s what I figure, since you launched yourself into a fucking panic attack thinking about it. Don’t you want to _satiate_ your curiosity, sweetheart? I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.”

“N-No!”

“You can touch it if you want to baby, it won’t bite,” Richie chuckles, grabbing one of Eddie’s hands to bring it to his thigh, centimeters away from where his cock is in his pants.

Eddie just keeps staring, and his fingers twitch against Richie’s leg, and he considers how bad it would be if he did. If he grabbed Richie’s dick in his pants and fucking squeezed it as hard as he can until it fucking falls right off of his body.

“Get the fuck off of me, Richie. I want to go home now. You- You had your fucking fun, now let me go home,” Eddie sobs, and Richie pouts down at him before letting go of his wrist.

“What a buzzkill.”

“Get. Off.”

“Not yet,” Richie replies, and he leans down to press his lips against Eddie’s before Eddie has the time to process what he’s doing. By the time he realizes, Richie already has his lips parted and he’s licking into Eddie’s mouth, and Eddie gives a muffled cry.

He grabs for Richie’s hair, because it’s the easiest thing to grab, and pulls as hard as he can. But Richie just moans in the back of his throat and licks against his tongue with more vigor, and Eddie hates how lightheaded it’s making him. Maybe it’s the lack of oxygen.

He can’t help thinking of how Richie tastes the same as he remembers: like fucking cigarette smoke. He’s startled by the soft little moan that bubbles up at the back of his throat, and he realizes all at once that he’s been kissing back.

He’s been kissing back, and his aggressive tugging on Richie’s hair has changed in its intention, and he’s pressing himself up into Richie’s hips, and his injured hand is wrapped into the fabric of Richie’s flannel to pull him in closer.

And he wants to fucking punch him again. He wants to pull their lips apart and punch Richie in his fucking face a third time. He should.

But when Richie’s pulls away, he starts kissing down Eddie’s neck, and Eddie lets him. He arches into it, in fact. He moans again in his throat, though without the barrier of Richie’s mouth, he’s forced to hear it at its full, shameful volume.

And he figures this is it. The beginning of the end. The start of whatever horrible series of events is going to end up ruining his fucking life, because that’s all Richie ever does. He’s a fucking ruiner.

And really, it’s probably better to give in, anyway. It’s not like Richie would stop trying. It’s not like he ever has.

Not ever since they were little kids. It’s always been a losing battle, ever since the day he met Richie at the playground when Bill introduced them to one another, and he couldn’t stop thinking about how pretty his eyes were behind his coke bottle glasses.

“You still taste so sweet,” Richie breathes against Eddie’s throat between nips and kisses, and yeah, Eddie was doomed from the start.

_I always knew you were a sweetie, Eds. You even taste like candy._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Big big shout out to all of my tumblr rats, I love you guys so fucking much. The feral love for this fic fuels me so much, and the next chapter is gonna be my fav chapter in the whole fic probably, so I am very excited to finish it!! See you all again soon :)


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